.

Blockchains can be used to monitor the billions of dollars of  funding by the government agencies,
private donations and funds generated by charitable organisations to the various research institutions;
the share of the pharma companies; and the expenses incurred at the various stages of vaccine
development to bring about transparency in the process. The exact demographic data with the details
of infectivity rate, case fatality ratio and sero-surveys to prioritise the ‘population in need’ have to be
charted. And all this information needs to put together seamlessly in a digital format as ‘ blocks’ which
can be opened in not only a sequential pattern, but even in simultaneous or random formats.

Smart contracts and immutable records in the blockchain deal with problems like the degradation of
vaccines during their supply, as temperatures fluctuate in the cold chain.The end-to-end visibility of
the products by bringing the suppliers and manufacturers together on a single platform, would reduce
the over-expensive, blanket recalls of defective products by providing a reliable way to pinpoint the
exact affected product immediately ensuring swift action. Blockchain lets healthcare professionals and
patients check the quality of a vaccine and its authenticity by scanning a barcode on a vaccine.
monitor vaccination progress, track vaccine movements across sites, simulate changes in demand
and supply and use real-time data to make decisions on opening additional vaccination sites.

Blockchain allows all the involved parties in the supply chain network to record the transaction at each
stage of the product’s (vaccine) shipment. This will prevent counterfeit doses from being distributed to
the pharmaceutical supply chain. The decentralized ledger by Blockchain provides close coordination
among the different parties such as vaccine distributors, vaccine providers, and the common people
who are yet to receive the vaccine.