Blockchain technology is typically connected with digital currencies. Nevertheless, it’s now developing as an essential platform for COVID-19 management.

It’s been a center in China, where a top-down approach is a key to driving sectors and technology. Blockchain was appended to a list of Chinese government preferences in October 2019, when President Xi Jinping announced it as an essential breakthrough for the country. It was then in use before the pandemic.

The early implementation of blockchain enabled China to leverage relatively quickly enduring technological and regulatory bases to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. But, some state it is still early for blockchain in other areas of health care. Blockchain still has a minimal application in health care, with the tracking of drug supply chains recently its main use.

It is utilized to improve the traceability of drugs, make supply chains more secure, and control counterfeit medicines. Pharma companies, including Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, of Ingelheim, Germany, and Singapore’s Zuellig Pharma, have associated with software corporation SAP SE, of Walldorf, Germany, on blockchain solutions for supply chain tracking and fake drug identification.

The program will be utilized to inform a more large, industry-wide tracking system that will be part of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act. It will come into effect in 2023 – a time by which COVID-19 treatments should have materialized and been able to profit from it.

 Blockchain is named among the new disruptive technologies with the potential to have an influence on the health care sector. Although it will need some regulatory changes before that can happen.

As COVID-19 treatments and vaccines are being examined, blockchain can be utilized to support the trials. To support this application, the health care providers and organizations would require utilizing the blockchain to store anonymized patients’ data publicly. This would require showing only nonidentifiable data, such as gender, age, and type of illness.

With consent, blockchain also can be used to track patients’ adherence to medical treatments and provide smoother access to medical records. In addition, blockchain can be implemented for learning about and monitoring disease outbreak patterns. Besides consent, transparency is also clearly required.