BLOCKCHAIN TRACKING THE WAY TO GO IN VACCINE DISTRIBUTION TO REDUCE THEFT AND FRAUD

In his latest post on his blog, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin says his ministry (Mosti), has incorporated blockchain technology into the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 Vaccine Management System to “ensure every dose ends up in the arms of the rakyat”.

- JAMARI MOHTAR

This is really an excellent move that should be lauded because Khairy really knows what he is talking about. Nowadays going blockchain has become a trend in the developed countries that there is a bandwagon effect where everybody wants to adopt it without really understanding why it should be adopted in the first place.

On the other end of the spectrum are those entities in developing countries which stubbornly refuse to adopt the technology when their processes and procedures are approaching the realm of inefficiency and wastage of resources which could lead to fraud, theft and forgery of documents.

The most important consideration for using the blockchain for certain business, corporate or regulative processes and procedures is generally to see whether these are already done efficiently and effectively without the technology. If the answer is yes, then there is no need to adopt it until current processes or procedures become very cumbersome and inefficient.

Tracking of logistics and supply chains falls under data provenance which is one of the most significant real-world applications of blockchain technology. This involves the documentation of where a piece of data comes from and the processes and methodology by which the data was produced. It creates a single, secure chain of custody timeline, designed to be tamper-proof.

Since the rationale to adopt the blockchain as elucidated by Khairy is to “provide stronger assurance around the vaccine supply chain, as vaccine supply enters the country and is distributed to vaccination locations nationwide, thus reducing the risk of theft and fraud, and ultimately reduce wastage”, this makes the whole tracking much easier as compared to tracking the “halal-ness” of a product.