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We propose a novel framework, Vacledger, for supply chain traceability and counterfeit detection of COVID-19 vaccines using a blockchain network. It includes four smart contracts on a private-permissioned blockchain network for supply chain traceability and counterfeit detection of COVID-19 vaccine, more specifically to (i) handle the rules and regulations of vaccine importing countries and provide authorization for cross the borders (regulatory compliance and border authorization smart contract), (ii) register new and imported vaccines in the Vacledger system (vaccine registration smart contract), (iii) find the number of stocks that have arrived in the Vacledger system (stock accumulation smart contract), and (iv) identify the exact location of the stock (location tracing update smart contract). Our results show that the proposed system keeps track of all activities, events, transactions, and all other past transactions, permanently stored in an immutable Vacledger connected to decentralized peer-to-peer file systems. We observe no algorithm complexity differences between the proposed Vacledger system and existing supply chain frameworks based on different blockchain types. In addition, based on four use cases, we estimate our model's overall gasoline cost (transaction or gas price). The Vacledger system empowers distribution companies to manage their supply chain operations effectively and securely using an in-network, permissioned distributed network. This study employs the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain (the healthcare industry) to demonstrate how the proposed Vacledger system operates. Despite this, our proposed approach might be implemented in other supply chain industries, such as the food industry, energy trading, and commodity transactions.
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Since Bitcoin introduced the blockchain, research has been conducted to expand its use cases beyond finance. One sector where blockchain is anticipated to have a big influence is healthcare. Researchers and practitioners in health informatics constantly struggle to keep up with the advancement of this field's young but quickly expanding body of research. This chapter provides a thorough review of studies carried out to demonstrate the benefits of blockchain technology that have been utilized in the domain of healthcare, in addition to the pandemic, COVID-19, which led to a massive and pervasive repercussion on healthcare and has significantly accelerated the implementation of digital technology. This chapter also depicts how researchers have presented the use cases for adopting Blockchain technology in the healthcare sector. The state-of-the-art blockchain application development for healthcare has also been described in this chapter, along with any inadequacies and potential future study topics. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Medical waste management is a challenging problem that not only directly affects the environment but also people's health. This urgent issue is getting more and more attention in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. New infections are increasing exponentially in all countries globally, especially developing countries with large populations (e.g., India, Brazil, Bangladesh). Studies on the spread of the disease have listed one of the causes of this crisis as the Covid-19 waste treatment process not being followed correctly and the difficulty of data retrieval. Vietnam was also severely damaged by the Covid-19 epidemic, although the government initially controlled the disease very well. The Covid-19 waste treatment process in Vietnam is still being processed manually and with a combination of many departments. Data sharing and tracking are also tricky because they are centrally stored in different facilities/departments. In addition, there is a lack of synchronization and transparency of shared data. This paper is one of the first attempts to fill that gaps by applying Blockchain technology and decentralized storage. Relevant parties will retrieve all data, and the source of waste can be easily traced. We also implemented a proof-of-concept based on the Hyperledger Fabric platform to demonstrate the idea's feasibility. In the evaluation, we observe the process of initializing and querying data. These initial efforts will lay the groundwork for more in-depth studies to create an initiative for Vietnam's medical waste treatment process when faced with a new wave of infections or another epidemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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Introduction: The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, called COVID-19, in Colombia as well as in a great part of the world, has been declared as a public health emergency of international concern, affecting different aspects of the daily life, being one of the most important the access and distribution of necessary medicine, not only for the known deceases but also for the mitigation of COVID 19. Objective: the distribution of medicines should maintain stability in the supply chain of essential medicines, thus ensuring high quality medicines that could help in the treatment to fight the virus. Methodology: through this work a detailed analysis of the variable and critical points in the supply chain of essential medicines to mitigate COVID-19 is developed. Results: A new architecture based on the Blockchain Hyperledger is presented. It will help to solve those critical points found, through the secure trace of the medicine supply chain. In Colombia, by using this architecture all actors take responsibilities in the distribution chain, ensuring a high level of transparency in the distribution process. Discussion: by verifying the proper functioning of the model, the main difficulty when using Hyperledger is the lack of suppliers with experience; besides, there are not enough standardization or regulations of Blockchain. Conclusion: It is proved that Blockchain is an optimal technology to ensure essential medicine supply chain for the COVID 19 treatment in Colombia.
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The rise of communication and information technology in conjunction with the health emergency due to COVID-19 has accelerated the implementation of electronic health records (EHR). These registries are constantly growing and put people's privacy, information security and health data at risk. The use of the blockchain is shown as an alternative for the distribution and management of health data. However, the blockchain has limitations of scalability and interoperability. This work proposes a scalable management architecture based on blockchain that will be analyzed by comparing it with other works reviewed in the document. The model proposed in three modules aims to deliver an alternative to EHR's scalable management solution based on the private blockchain such as Hyperledger Fabric. © 2022 IEEE.
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As the COVID-19 continues to spread globally, more and more companies are transforming into remote online offices, leading to the expansion of electronic signatures. However, the existing electronic signatures platform has the problem of data-centered management. The system is subject to data loss, tampering, and leakage when an attack from outside or inside occurs. In response to the above problems, this paper designs an electronic signature solution and implements a prototype system based on the consortium blockchain. The solution divides the contract signing process into four states: contract upload, initiation signing, verification signing, and confirm signing. The signing process is mapped with the blockchain-linked data. Users initiate the signature transaction by signing the uploaded contract's hash. The sign state transition is triggered when the transaction is uploaded to the blockchain under the consensus mechanism and the smart contract control, which effectively ensures the integrity of the electronic contract and the non-repudiation of the electronic signature. Finally, the blockchain performance test shows that the system can be applied to the business scenario of contract signing. © 2022 IEEE.
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Regulating and monitoring a traditionally fragmented pharma supply chain has been a global challenge for decades. Without a trusted system and strong collaboration between stakeholders, threats such as counterfeits can easily intercept the supply chain and cause monumental disruptions. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for greater data transparency, better deployment of technology, and improved ways of connecting stakeholder information along the supply chain. There is a need for improved ways of working to help build up supply chain resilience, and one way is by implementing better end-to-end traceability using blockchain technology such as Hyperledger Fabric. This paper will explore the business value that blockchain brings to the pharma supply chain with better end-to-end traceability, using the example of an industry-grade blockchain solution called eZTracker. Through six key features, pharmaceutical manufacturers, patients, and Healthcare Practitioners (HCPs) can now participate in data sharing, with extended use cases of integrating blockchain with warehouse platforms, a patient-facing mobile application, and an interactive dashboard for real-time verification and data transparency. Beyond anti-counterfeit verification, other potential use cases include effective product recall management, cold chain monitoring, e-product information, and more. The effectiveness of a traceability solution is heavily dependent on the amount of data collected and is affected by poor adoption and scalability. Existing limitations that need to be addressed include the lack of mandated serialization in Asia and blockchain interoperability. To maximize the value of blockchain, collaboration is the key. Pharmaceutical manufacturers need to invest in new technologies, such as blockchain, to help them break out of data silos and operationalize data to build supply chain resilience. Pharmaceutical supply chain is the backbone of a US$1.27 trillion industry,1 but because of its highly complex and fragmented nature, it is hard to regulate and protect, and this makes it a valuable target for opportunistic parties such as counterfeiters looking to profit.2 As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been greater emphasis on transparency of data and connecting stakeholders along the pharma supply chain in real-time in the last few years. With the introduction of blockchain technology, companies are now able to implement solutions with more effective track and trace results, providing quality assurance to pharmaceutical manufacturers, patients, and Healthcare Practitioners (HCPs), and even improving operational efficiencies. This paper seeks to explore the positive business impact of end-to-end traceability using blockchain technology, and the effects it brings about, such as improving supply chain resilience and combating counterfeits, as seen in successful live use cases in Asia.
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The COVID-19 virus has been spreading worldwide on a large scale since 2019, and the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 is to vaccinate. In order to prove that vaccination has been administered to allow access to different areas, paper vaccine passports are produced. However, paper vaccine passport records are vulnerable to counterfeiting or abuse. Previous research has suggested that issuing certificates digitally is an easier way to verify them. This study used the consortium blockchain based on Hyperledger Fabric to upload the digital vaccine passport (DVP) to the blockchain network. In order to enable collaboration across multiple systems, networks, and organizations in different trust realms. Federated Identity Management is considered a promising approach to facilitate secure resource sharing between collaborating partners. Therefore, the international federal identity management architecture proposed in this study enables inspectors in any country to verify the authenticity of the DVP of incoming passengers using the consortium blockchain. Through practical construction, the international federal Hyperledger verification framework for the DVP proposed in this study has shown the feasibility of issuing a global DVP in safety analysis and efficacy testing.
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Several authorities require individuals to be vaccinated with WHO-approved vaccines to allow cross-border travel or access to public areas. Recently vaccination certificates have become crucial in curbing the spread of the corona virus. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure the integrity and authenticity of vaccination records. A secure mechanism is required to maintain the immunization records and issue an immutable vaccination certificate to individuals that may be used as a passport for uninhibited movement. We propose a blockchain-based solution that issues verifiable and trustworthy vaccination certificates for not just COVID-19 vaccines but also other diseases. Our proposed model reduces the time required to retrieve vaccination status. The solution is scalable due to its simplicity as it does not require multiple participants on the network for its operation. Moreover, the system can be easily integrated with existing enterprise applications for its functionality. © 2022 IEEE.
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The COVID-19 has changed the way technology has been perceived and adapted. It has revealed the potential of technology in overcoming the challenges caused by this pandemic. COVID-19 has disturbed all essential activities especially education, business, healthcare, etc. People were forced to employ technology to carry out their day-to-day tasks like grocery shopping, education, business, healthcare etc. Various computing technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain are being widely adopted to help track the outbreak of panademic, enforce restrictive measures, ensure availability of medical equipemnts, develop, and test vaccine. Blockchain is among these technologies that can be used as a potential problem solver to overcome numerous challenges. It has various key features, such as immutability, decentralization, and transparency, that can be utilized to benefit different sectors affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research aims to present COVID-19 applications that are based on blockchain technology. Further, we have illustrated the applicability blockchain technology in various fields like healthcare, education, government, finance, etc. We have also discussed a comparison of blockchain-based applications. Features and benefits of these applications are discussed along with the challenges associated with the adoption of blockchain-based COVID-19 applications. © 2022, Suranaree Journal of Science and Technology. All Rights Reserved.
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Medicines play a vital role in human lives and that’s why the market size of medicines is quite large. Amid the pandemic of COVID-19 in the 21st century, the governments of many countries as well as healthcare industries, hospitals, doctors, and patients are facing a crucial threat of tampering and counterfeiting of vaccines and drugs. This is not an issue that can be ignored easily, as it troubles all of society in a significant way. New technology such as near field communication (NFC), combined with the latest technologies such as Hyperledger, blockchain, and the Internet of Things have given efficient results. The methodology used in this research manuscript (the authors named it “AKSHAT”) is that an NFC chip will be installed in the caps of medicines. When a consumer scans the label on a product with a phone or any NFC-enabled device, the device authenticates the product and informs as to whether it is a genuine product. When a consumer finds that the NFC seal is broken or if it looks intact but NFC data cannot be read, then apparently the product has been tampered with. In NFC, all data and information can be stored and cannot be changed again. The research results presented here establish that NFC is time-efficient, cost-effective, secure, and accurate. With the use of NFC tags, registered transactions on a private network and the tracing of the vaccine are very easy. The authors’ team has demonstrated this as a product that can currently store every transaction as immutable and transparent. The proposed anticounterfeiting solution “AKSHAT” uses NTAG-213 based tags, which are cost-effective as well as have a mutual understanding with all NFC-enabled smartphones. This provides the option for all product manufacturers and brand owners to integrate NFC technology at a fraction of the money. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Objective: Despite the implementation of quality assurance procedures, current clinical trial management processes are time-consuming, costly, and often susceptible to error. This can result in limited trust, transparency, and process inefficiencies, without true patient empowerment. The objective of this study was to determine whether blockchain technology could enforce trust, transparency, and patient empowerment in the clinical trial data management process, while reducing trial cost. Design: In this proof of concept pilot, we deployed a Hyperledger Fabric-based blockchain system in an active clinical trial setting to assess the impact of blockchain technology on mean monitoring visit time and cost, non-compliances, and user experience. Using a parallel study design, we compared differences between blockchain technology and standard methodology. Results: A total of 12 trial participants, seven study coordinators and three clinical research associates across five sites participated in the pilot. Blockchain technology significantly reduces total mean monitoring visit time and cost versus standard trial management (475 to 7 min; P = 0.001; 722 to 10; P = 0.001 per participant/visit, respectively), while enhancing patient trust, transparency, and empowerment in 91, 82 and 63% of the patients, respectively. No difference in non-compliances as a marker of trial quality was detected. Conclusion: Blockchain technology holds promise to improve patient-centricity and to reduce trial cost compared to conventional clinical trial management. The ability of this technology to improve trial quality warrants further investigation.
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The global public health crisis caused by the emergence and spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been devastating, prompting the need for immediate countermeasures to curb its spread, especially in the absence of any approved treatment shortly after its onset This crisis has highlighted the gap in current contact tracing systems, which require massive public participation to be effective but lack a high degree of public acceptance. This low acceptance is mainly due to concerns regarding personal data privacy and guaranteed data protection, hindering the success of existing systems. We evaluate the use of blockchain to improve contact tracing and provide a solution to effectively track the spread of an epidemic, using COVID-19 as a relevant use case. The key requirements of the proposed system include protecting user data, maintaining full transparency using a decentralised system, and eliminating the need for global positioning system or personal data for contact tracing A proof-of-concept system uses a private blockchain to secure and manage data collected at various locations using a mobile application or stored-value contactless smart cards. Contact tracing is performed via smart contracts over the blockchain using the collected data. We confirm the improvements provided by the proposed system for contact tracing.
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To prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019 has seen unprecedented demand for medical equipment and supplies. However, the problem of waste treatment has not yet been given due attention, i.e., the traditional waste treatment process is done independently, and it is not easy to share the necessary information. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the interaction between parties is minimized to limit infections. To evaluate the current system at medical centers, we also refer to the traditional waste treatment processes of four hospitals in Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh cities (Vietnam). Almost all hospitals are handled independently, lacking any interaction between the stakeholders. In this article, we propose a decentralized blockchain-based system for automating waste treatment processes for medical equipment and supplies after usage among the relevant parties, named Medical-Waste Chain. It consists of four components: medical equipment and supplies, waste centers, recycling plants, and sorting factories. Medical-Waste Chain integrates blockchain-based Hyperledger Fabric technology with decentralized storage of medical equipment and supply information, and securely shares related data with stakeholders. We present the system design, along with the interactions among the stakeholders, to ensure the minimization of medical waste generation. We evaluate the performance of the proposed solution using system-wide timing and latency analysis based on the Hyperledger Caliper engine. Our system is developed based on the hybrid-blockchain system, so it is fully scalable for both on-chain and off-chain-based extensions. Moreover, the participants do not need to pay any fees to use and upgrade the system. To encourage future use of Medical-Waste Chain, we also share a proof-of-concept on our Github repository.
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Blockchains emerged in the past decade with applications across a myriad of domains, however this nascent field has so far been commonly associated with cryptocurrencies. The secure and decentralized nature of blockchains offers benefits across a wide range of industries, including healthcare which remains the largest focus of cyber crimes today. In this work, we demonstrate a Blockchain implementation as a proof of concept for the storage of electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) related to the COVID-19 pandemic. We use two Amazon Managed Blockchain services, Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum, to store medical data in Amazon Web Services (AWS). While the two frameworks provide a secure resource for medical data, depending on the chosen implementation, the cost can grow quickly based on the number of requests, which may make them prohibitive for applications such as COVID-19 vaccine passports. copy;2022 IEEE. © 2022 IEEE.
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Initial Crypto-Token Offering (ICO) strategy has worked so far to fund any project. In this scheme, the ICO launches a token playing the role of a stockholder’s share;the more the people buy tokens, the more the funding for the projects. The stakeholders also earn money if the project gains more reliability and more people buy this token. In other words, an ICO strategy works based on either selling or buying of tokens in the areas of security, utility, equity, etc. However, this paper’s focus is only on using oracles and Hyperledger, which means that there is no need to launch a token, instead it uses the network blockchain benefits, particularly oracles and the Ethereum virtual machine, i.e. not the Ethereum blockchain platform but its virtual machine. Since this is a proposal for governmental or corporate usage, the Hyperledger and oracles strategy fits better for this application. Funds for this use-case are gathered in the healthcare field, specifically to reduce the COVID-19 pandemic. The system’s reliability is the core for attracting investors and donors to fund the system if it guarantees that resources will get to the right destiny. DAPP is based on a smart contract aligned with the smart societies concept to ensure system sustainability. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Fractals is the property of World Scientific Publishing Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
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Due to its significant global impact, both domestic and international efforts are underway to cure the infection and stop the COVID-19 virus from spreading further. In resource-limited environments, overwhelmed healthcare institutions and surveillance systems are struggling to cope with this epidemic, necessitating a specific strategic response. In this study, we looked into the COVID-19 situation and to establish trust, accountability, and transparency, we employed blockchain's immutable and tamper-proof properties. We offered a smart contract (SC)-based solution (Block-HPCT) that has been successfully tested to preserve a digital health passport (DHP) for vaccine recipients; also, for contact tracing (CT) we employed proof of location concept, which aids in a swift and credible response directly from the appropriate healthcare authorities. To connect on-chain and off-chain data, trusted and registered oracles were integrated and to provide a double layer of security along with symmetric key encryption; both Interplanetary File System (IPFS) and Hyperledger Fabric were merged as storage center. We also provided a full description of the suggested solution's system design, implementation, experiment results, and evaluation (privacy and cost analysis). As per the findings, the suggested approach performed satisfactorily across all significant assessment criteria, implying that it can lead the way for practical implementations and also can be used for similar types of situations where contact tracing of infectious can be crucial.
Subject(s)
Blockchain , COVID-19 , Communicable Diseases , COVID-19/prevention & control , Contact Tracing/methods , Humans , PrivacyABSTRACT
Nowadays, there are many fragmented records of patient’s health data in different locations like hospitals, clinics, and organizations all around the world. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, several governments and institutions struggled to have satisfactory, fast, and accurate decision-making in a wide, dispersed, and global environment. In the current literature, we found that the most common related challenges include delay (network latency), software scalability, health data privacy, and global patient identification. We propose to design, implement and evaluate a healthcare software architecture focused on a global vaccination strategy, considering healthcare privacy issues, latency mitigation, support of scalability, and the use of a global identification. We have designed and implemented a prototype of a healthcare software called Fog-Care, evaluating performance metrics like latency, throughput and send rate of a hypothetical scenario where a global integrated vaccination campaign is adopted in wide dispensed locations (Brazil, USA, and United Kingdom), with an approach based on blockchain, unique identity, and fog computing technologies. The evaluation results demonstrate that the minimum latency spends less than 1 second to run, and the average of this metric grows in a linear progression, showing that a decentralized infrastructure integrating blockchain, global unique identification, and fog computing are feasible to make a scalable solution for a global vaccination campaign within other hospitals, clinics, and research institutions around the world and its data-sharing issues of privacy, and identification. Author
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The global outbreak of Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) which in 2020 reached pandemic scale, has been a central topic of debate in our society. Concerns over the ease of transmission of the infection led to the imposition of measures restricting freedom such as curfews, lockdown, general confinement, and closure of trade. Technology was one of the tools used to resist to the spread of the disease using applications that, on one hand, track contacts to warn users that were close to someone infected and, on the other hand, provide immunity digital certification. Despite the relevance of these options, end users have no confidence, transparency, and responsibility that the registration and use of their health data are ethical, secure, anonymous, and available through verifiable credentials and, most importantly, is being used for its main purpose. Consequently, a solution based on a distributed ledger technology, such as blockchain, is introduced to assure the trustworthiness and integrity of user’s data. Since the proposed application embraced user privacy, we conducted a comparative study between permissioned blockchains, that includes an authorization ion layer and ensures that certain actions can only be performed by identifiable participants. We concluded that Hyperledger Fabric was an option that fulfilled all the requirements to develop a platform for the immunity passport ledger. Its modularity and versatility accommodates the needs that were initially proposed for the development of a proof of concept. The work leads us to propose that further research be conducted regarding scalability and performance evaluation. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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On March 11, 2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was declared a global pandemic. With no treatment or vaccine available at the time, it was necessary to rely on non-pharmaceutical methods for case identification and contact tracing. This kind of approach has good results in detecting and preventing tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections, and vaccine-preventable diseases. Contact tracing and keeping safe distances are crucial to containing the spread of COVID-19. Nonetheless, contact tracing is a complex intervention, it involves quarantining and investigating close contacts. Manual contact tracing methods are slow, require a large amount of effort, and more often than not rely on the memory or assumptions of individuals. To combat these downsides, contact tracing applications were developed, resulting in quicker and more reliable recognition of infected individuals. However, because of the complex nature of these applications and their lack of transparency, a large portion of the population started doubting the privacy of the data collected. Soon after, many of these applications started to dwindle in the user department, which caused a feedback loop. “If fewer people are using the application, the application itself becomes useless, and there is no longer a reason to use it.” Is clear that the main issue behind their downfall was an overwhelming lack of trust. In response, this paper will analyze how the use of blockchain technology can help the development of a more transparent application. And describe how a proof of work based on this concept was implemented. On the same note, it will also approach why was Hyperledger Sawtooth chosen, instead of more popular solutions such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.