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Background: As public health strategists and policymakers explore different approaches to lessen the devastating effects of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), blockchain technology has emerged as a resource that can be utilized in numerous ways Many blockchain technologies have been proposed or implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic;however, to the best of our knowledge, no comprehensive reviews have been conducted to uncover and summarise the main feature of these technologies Objective: This study aims to explore proposed or implemented blockchain technologies used to mitigate the COVID-19 challenges as reported in the literature Methods: We conducted a scoping review in line with guidelines of PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) To identify relevant studies, we searched 11 bibliographic databases (e g , EMBASE and MEDLINE) and conducted backward and forward reference list checking of the included studies and relevant reviews The study selection and data extraction were conducted by 2 reviewers independently Data extracted from the included studies was narratively summarised and described Results: 19 of 225 retrieved studies met eligibility criteria in this review The included studies reported 10 used cases of blockchain to mitigate COVID-19 challenges;the most prominent use cases were contact tracing and immunity passports While the blockchain technology was developed in 10 studies, its use was proposed in the remaining 9 studies The public blockchain technology was the most commonly utilized type in the included studies All together, 8 different consensus mechanisms were used in the included studies Out of 10 studies that identified the used platform, 9 studies used Ethereum to run the blockchain Solidity was the most prominent programming language used in developing blockchain technology in the included studies The transaction cost was reported in only 4 of the included studies and varied between USD 10−10 and USD 5 The expected latency and expected scalability were not identified in the included studies Conclusion: Blockchain technologies are expected to play an integral role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic Many possible applications of blockchain were found in this review;however, most of them are not mature enough to reveal their expected impact in the fight against COVID-19 We encourage governments, health authorities, and policymakers to consider all blockchain applications suggested in the current review to combat COVID-19 challenges There is a pressing need to empirically examine how effective blockchain technologies are in mitigating COVID-19 challenges Further studies are required to assess the performance of blockchain technologies’ fight against COVID-19 in terms of transaction cost, scalability, and/or latency when using different consensus algorithms, platforms, and access types
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