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. 2021 Jun 30:9:95730-95753.
doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3093633. eCollection 2021.

Blockchain and AI-Based Solutions to Combat Coronavirus (COVID-19)-Like Epidemics: A Survey

Dinh C Nguyen  1 , Ming Ding  2 , Pubudu N Pathirana  1 , Aruna Seneviratne  3
Affiliations

Blockchain and AI-Based Solutions to Combat Coronavirus (COVID-19)-Like Epidemics: A Survey

Dinh C Nguyen et al. IEEE Access. .

Abstract

The beginning of 2020 has seen the emergence of coronavirus outbreak caused by a novel virus called SARS-CoV-2. The sudden explosion and uncontrolled worldwide spread of COVID-19 show the limitations of existing healthcare systems in timely handling public health emergencies. In such contexts, innovative technologies such as blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have emerged as promising solutions for fighting coronavirus epidemic. In particular, blockchain can combat pandemics by enabling early detection of outbreaks, ensuring the ordering of medical data, and ensuring reliable medical supply chain during the outbreak tracing. Moreover, AI provides intelligent solutions for identifying symptoms caused by coronavirus for treatments and supporting drug manufacturing. Therefore, we present an extensive survey on the use of blockchain and AI for combating COVID-19 epidemics. First, we introduce a new conceptual architecture which integrates blockchain and AI for fighting COVID-19. Then, we survey the latest research efforts on the use of blockchain and AI for fighting COVID-19 in various applications. The newly emerging projects and use cases enabled by these technologies to deal with coronavirus pandemic are also presented. A case study is also provided using federated AI for COVID-19 detection. Finally, we point out challenges and future directions that motivate more research efforts to deal with future coronavirus-like epidemics.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence (AI); Blockchain; SARS-CoV-2; coronavirus (COVID-19); deep learning; epidemic; machine learning; privacy; security.

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Figures

FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 1.
The impact of COVID-19 on global economic growth (Source: OECD).
FIGURE 2.
FIGURE 2.
The concept of blockchain operation.
FIGURE 3.
FIGURE 3.
Blockchain and AI for coronavirus fighting.
FIGURE 4.
FIGURE 4.
The working flowchart of our proposed blockchain-AI architecture for fighting COVID-19.
FIGURE 5.
FIGURE 5.
A illustrative use case with blockchain and AI for COVID-19 data analytics.
FIGURE 6.
FIGURE 6.
The use case of blockchain for controlling COVID-19.
FIGURE 7.
FIGURE 7.
An application of machine learning to design antibody against COVID-19 .
FIGURE 8.
FIGURE 8.
Performance of discriminator loss.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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