Blockchain and AI-based Solutions to Combat Coronavirus (COVID-19)-like
Epidemics: A Survey
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 to timely handle public health emergencies.
In such contexts, innovative technologies such as blockchain and
Artificial Intelligence (AI) have emerged as promising solutions for
fighting coronavirus epidemic. On the one hand, blockchain can combat
pandemics by enabling early detection of outbreaks, protecting user
privacy, and ensuring reliable medical supply chain during the outbreak
tracking. On the other hand, AI provides intelligent solutions for
identifying symptoms caused by coronavirus for treatments and supporting
drug manufacturing. Motivated by these, in this paper we present an
extensive survey on the use of blockchain and AI for combating
coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemics based on the rapidly emerging
literature. First, we introduce a new conceptual architecture which
integrates blockchain and AI specific for COVID-19 fighting.
Particularly, we highlight the key solutions that blockchain and AI can
provide to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. Then, we survey the latest
research efforts on the use of blockchain and AI for COVID-19 fighting
in a wide range of applications. The newly emerging projects and use
cases enabled by these technologies to deal with coronavirus pandemic
are also presented. Finally, we point out challenges and future
directions that motivate more research efforts to deal with future
coronavirus-like epidemics.