Fighting COVID-19 With Blockchain
By: Revé Fisher
Tags: Blockchain, Distributed Ledgers, Covid 19, Health Technology, Pandemic

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

COVID-19 is the largest public health emergency in recent memory—and some of the world’s most innovative minds are developing blockchain-based solutions to help.

During the first wave of the pandemic, the International Association of Trusted Blockchain Applications (INATBA) launched the COVID-19 Solutions Task Force. In collaboration with the European Commission and University College London, the initiative brings together key players in the blockchain sector to address the social, governmental and commercial challenges brought about by the coronavirus crisis.

Similarly, researchers throughout the world have investigated how the central characteristics of blockchain technologies — decentralization, immutability, transparency and traceability — can be used to surpass the obstacles caused by COVID-19.

Here are some of the ways that blockchain is being used to fight the pandemic.

Contact Tracing

Contact tracing is a process that identifies individuals who have been in close contact with people who have tested positive for COVID-19. It’s one of the most common methods being used to control the spread of the virus.

While several solutions have already been proposed, adding blockchain to the mix can increase accuracy and reliability. It can also offer anonymity — which has been a major talking point when it comes to centralized contact tracing systems.

Nodle.io, a decentralized internet of things (IoT) network, launched Coalition, a “privacy-first” contact tracing app. The platform uses blockchain, Bluetooth and cryptographic technologies to trace, identify and notify potential carriers of COVID-19 while maintaining their privacy and anonymity.

The Coalition app promises to protect users’ privacy.

Through an open-sourced protocol called Coalition Whisper Tracing, the app creates an anonymous ID for each user. When users get sick, they declare their COVID-19 status through the app, which then sends the anonymous ID to the cloud. Other users’ phones download these IDs to compare them to those that have been stored locally on their phones. If there’s a match, the app sends a notification to the user.

Donations and Fundraising

Many nonprofits and NGOs are using blockchain to facilitate transparency in fundraising. This can allow them to save costs, limit financial corruption, remove the need for middlemen, and increase trust between their organization and the general public.

HyperChain, a digital assets management company focused on blockchain and decentralized projects, is using its platform to help governments and healthcare organizations securely collect, track and verify donations to help coronavirus-related medical supply efforts.

Through its system, HyperChain allows donors to transparently monitor where their money is going. The company also provides “proof of need” and “proof of receipt” to let users know that the intended party has received the funds.

Vaccine Passports

As the vaccine rollout gains momentum and life inches back to normal, “COVID passports” and immunity certificates have been proposed to certify vaccination status. While some regions have no plans to enforce mandatory vaccination, others have made these health passes obligatory for anyone who wants to travel, eat at restaurants or even enter public spaces.

As the need for COVID passports has increased, so has the black market for counterfeit certificates — demonstrating the need for a reliable, immutable system.

The E-HCert App on the VeChainThor blockchain has been used in Cyprus to certify vaccinations for doctors and nurses at the Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus. The app also verified about 8,000 PCR tests for people entering the country in June 2020.

While it remains unclear whether blockchain will be implemented into more official COVID passports, global teams of researchers are analyzing the possibilities. Hasan et al. have developed a blockchain-based solution for vaccine passports, and have publicly published the codes to their smart contracts on GitHub. Eisenstadt’s team has also created a protocol for a COVID passport mobile app on a consortium blockchain.

Supply Chain and Logistics

COVID-19 vaccines and supplies need to be stored, administered and used under strict conditions. Unfortunately, supply chain mistakes happen. Millions of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had to be thrown out due to human error. Thousands of vaccines are unusable because they were stored at the wrong temperature. And early in the pandemic, scammers tried to sell unverified masks and supplies to unsuspecting victims.

Two hospitals in England are using blockchain programs to monitor their COVID-19 vaccines using Everyware and Hedera Hashgraph. The systems maintain a record of temperature, note any irregularities in storage, and send the information to an unchangeable digital record on the Hedera Hashgraph platform.

When proper face masks were in short supply, blockchain supply chain platform VeChain teamed up with Chinese and American companies to limit the use of counterfeit masks. All of the boxes that were sent from China featured a VeChain NFT (non-fungible token) chip and a two-factor authentication QR code. This verified the masks and included important information about the supplies, such as when and where they were produced.

Clinical Trials

Governments, medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies rely on clinical trials to test the safety, efficacy and possible side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. Adding blockchain to the process could facilitate access to clinical data in real time, improve privacy and safety by creating an audit trail, and increase regulatory compliance through data transparency.

Several companies have been developing blockchain-based clinical trial solutions over the past few years, including IBM and Boehringer Ingelheim, ACL Digital and Sphereon. In these initiatives, the companies are addressing various aspects of the clinical trial process, such as patient retention and clinical document management.

All of these efforts make it clear that blockchain is much more than just a trendy tech term—it’s a powerful asset that can be used to increase transparency, trust, safety and ultimately health around the world.