Enhancing SARS-CoV-2 variants Research with Blockchain Architecture

The emergence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) virus in 2019 has led to continuous monitoring of the outbreak attempting to generate accurate reports of people's health information to understand the pandemic's impact. It is likely that more variants will emerge since not all countries and populations have been vaccinated. Thus, with SARS-CoV-2's constant mutation, researchers need to collect individuals' health data to study these variants and vaccine efficacy, especially those who show symptoms. However, researchers have difficulties building comprehensive datasets because people are unwilling to release their health information or have no way to report their health statuses (i.e., at-home testing). This problem stems from a lack of complete control over who assesses their health data. Hence, they cannot guarantee the security, privacy, and integrity of the disclosed health information. As the problem of building secure databases persists, researchers find it challenging to accurately report any evolving variants within a short period. This problem has resulted in several new outbreaks of the pandemic. In this work, we propose a blockchain architecture that can guarantee patients' health data integrity, privacy, and security, encouraging individuals to disclose their health information freely. This solution gives patients complete control over who assesses their health information. The framework proposed access management to patients' health data for researchers and contact tracers. This solution classifies patient health information to different sensitivity levels and manages access based on this sensitivity. In case of unauthorized access, the proposed solution detects and prevents such access, thereby ensuring the patient's health information's security, integrity, and privacy. Based on the classification, contact tracers can quickly assess the information needed from patients while the patients will be confident that no sensitive information is disclosed, reducing the burden on contact tracers.