KUALA LUMPUR: The MySejahtera app has to date successfully detected 9,167 Covid-19 cases nationwide.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, in a statement today, said the app has assisted the Health Ministry to identify Covid-19 positive cases through two methods.
The first method, he said, was self-assessment of health by users, in which Covid-19 cases are detected when an individual's assessment suggests a risk towards Covid-19 based on the ministry's guidelines.
He said as of Wed, the app successfully detected 1,561 Covid-19 cases (3.1 – 6.5 per cent), who were identified and confirmed positive via this method.
The second method, meanwhile, involves close contact-tracing, through which users who are potential close contacts to positive cases can be traced through this application.
"The data required from MySejahtera will be channelled to district health offices to assist field activities for contact-tracing purposes.
"The data will be analysed together with findings from field investigations and this contributes to contact-tracing efforts.
"The data from contact-tracing will be gathered using the MySejahtera Check-In module, where records of visitors at premises will be collected using the QR code scan which are placed at every location.
"As of Nov 18, 7,606 positive Covid-19 cases (15.1-37.8 per cent) have been detected through the contact tracing method using MySejahtera," he said.
He cited the Utama cluster from the One Utama shopping mall as a "success story" that demonstrates the effectiveness of the MySejahtera app.
"For the Utama cluster, the MySejahtera app helped identify 17,260 users who had visited the shopping mall within the time frame.
"Of the total, 1,343 individuals were identified for further assessment by the district health office, from which 457 individuals were verified as close contacts to the cluster's positive cases.
"The screening process subsequently found that 221 of them tested positive for Covid-19. We managed to track them down on the same day when the cluster was announced using the MySejahtera app," he said.
He said the app has received encouraging response from the public since it was launched on April 20.
"The MySejahtera app has recorded 23,953,970 registered users and another 1,058,853 register business premises as of Nov 18.
"So far, MySejahtera has recorded 1.7 billion cumulative check-ins to registered premises using the QR code scan with an average of 15 million check-ins daily.
"The app was also helpful in answering 523,000 questions from users. It has also attained 4.7 stars rating in the Apple Store and Google Playstore applications," he said.
Dr Noor Hisham also gave his assurance that data collected using the app will only be used for contact-tracing purposes, in accordance with the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 and Medical Act 1971.
"The personal information of users is also protected under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010. The data of check-ins collected will be archived for 30 days and will be erased after 90 days," he said.