MySejahtera’s role in pandemic

PUTRAJAYA: Over 9,000 of the country’s Covid-19 cases were detected through the MySejahtera application since it was launched on April 20, the Health Ministry said.

In a statement, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said most of the 9,167 cases were identified through the app from contact tracing activities.

“The MySejahtera app has helped the ministry to identify Covid-19 cases through two methods. One through contact tracing, where the district health office uses the MySejahtera database.

“Users who are potential close contacts of a Covid-19 patient can also be traced through the app. As of Nov 18, the ministry has detected 7,606 cases through this method, ” said Dr Noor Hisham.

Another 1,561 cases were traced through the app’s self-assessment feature.

“With the app health self-assessment, a positive case can be detected after the user finds they are at risk based on the ministry’s guideline, ” said Dr Noor Hisham.

The Utama cluster, which originated from 1Utama shopping mall in Petaling Jaya, saw a total of 221 cases identified from MySejahtera.

“A total of 1,343 individuals who visited the mall were earmarked for further assessment by the district health office. From that amount, 457 were classified as close contacts under the Utama cluster.

“Sample tests confirmed that 221 were cases detected, out of the 457, ” said Dr Noor Hisham.

Dr Noor Hisham also gave the assurance that MySejahtera app adheres to global standards in terms of data privacy and safety.

The MySejahtera has recorded 1.7 billion cumulative check-ins using its QR code feature at registered premises, with an average of 15 million check-ins a day.

Earlier, Dr Noor Hisham announced the country has recorded 1,290 new Covid-19 cases yesterday.

This marks a return to four digits, after reporting 660 cases the day before.

Prior to that, the country experienced four figures in its daily Covid-19 cases for five straight days.

Sabah has the highest number, reported 660 new cases with 250 cases from the clusters related to temporary detention centres, lock-ups and prisons.

Selangor has 407 cases, of which more than half (245 cases) were from the Teratai cluster and 55 cases were from the newly-detected Kapas BJ cluster.

“Both clusters involved infections at workplaces involving foreigners, ” said Dr Noor Hisham.

The Health Ministry detected four new infection clusters yesterday in Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Perak and Johor.

There were four Covid-19 fatalities -- two in Sabah and one each in Johor and Perak. The country’s death toll is now 326.

There were 878 patients discharged, with total recoveries standing at 38,132.

Active cases in the country have gone up to 13,222.

Cumulatively, Malaysia’s Covid-19 cases have reached 51,680.

Currently, 110 people are being treated at intensive care units, with 37 of them requiring ventilator support.