KUALA LUMPUR: THE Health Ministry has proposed the use of electronic tracking devices on the wristbands of those undergoing home quarantine for Covid-19 to monitor their whereabouts.
The recommendation had been brought to the attention of the National Security Council (NSC) and this was confirmed by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said this in a brief response to a question by the New Straits Times yesterday, on whether the wristbands that rely on GPS and big data to track one's location and movements had been explored to improve on the current monitoring system.
Dr Noor Hisham, however, did not say when the proposal was made and what was the outcome of the recommendation.
As the nation's public hospitals continued to struggle with the increasing number of positive cases, home quarantine had been regarded as the next best option to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
Stage 1 and Stage 2 cases, or those who are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms, respectively, had been advised to remain at home and update the authorities on their symptoms to give public hospitals a breathing room.
Epidemiologist Datuk Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud said there was an urgent need for this as it was clear that hospitals were running at full capacity.
"Tracking technology can be adopted for such (medical) bracelets. This will incur some cost, but it is not that high," he told the New Straits Times.
"In Hong Kong, for example, tracking bracelets are paired with one's mobile phone. Taiwan uses a different approach, which triangulates one's mobile phone signal supplemented by the M-Police system that checks whether quarantined individuals are in the (permitted) vicinity."
Awang, who is the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry's Covid-19 Epidemiological Analysis and Strategies Task Force chairman, said South Korea had also adopted GPS tracking using mobile phones that served as a geofence (virtual perimeter) for those quarantined.
"Poland, on the other hand, uses a mobile application that compels a person to take geo-located selfies."
Addressing privacy concerns, Awang said the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) compelled Stage 1 and 2 Covid-19 patients to remain at home.
"In Taiwan and South Korea, people are also concerned about privacy issues, but they showed huge acceptance to such a system as it is for the public good."
He admitted that the cost of the e-devices that draw on GPS satellite location data and big data could be a drawback to its implementation here.
"The decision is, however, justifiable if we consider the situation where people fail to observe the Home Surveillance Order (HSO) with no back measures or worse, completely rely on public hospitals to pick up the slack."
Malaysia has reportedly been dealing with issues related to home quarantine violators from the second wave of infection last year.
In July, a permanent resident in Kedah who broke the home quarantine order caused the Sivagangga cluster. It forced authorities to impose stricter Movement Control Order measures in several areas in the state and Perlis.
Awang, who is also a professor at Universiti Malaya, proposed for resources to be pumped into developing the technology to enable patients' symptoms to be verified medically.
"As for checking on patients, this can be done via applications like the CosMos app developed for the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre home surveillance, or other apps that have been designed for this.
"This will reduce the manual patient checking that is currently being practised by the Health Ministry."
Criminologist Datuk Dr P. Sundramoorthy said e-tracking devices had been in the market for quite some time, particularly ankle bracelets for those placed under house arrest, for example.
"The enforcement authorities would be alerted the moment the person (under house arrest) steps out of the permitted zone, such as outside the house, and the accuracy rate is very high."
He acknowledged that although the cost could be an issue, the device would serve as an investment by saving lives while protecting the frontliners.
Sundramoorthy also urged the government to address flaws in the current system for those placed under the HSO, explaining that his friend was tested positive. but was placed under the order in the same house with his family members without getting callbacks from the authorities.
Earlier, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the MySejahtera application was reported to have only successfully detected four per cent of total cases up to mid-November.
From Jul 24 last year until Jan 27, a total of 111,895 individuals arrived at border checkpoints.
During this period, 7,948 people underwent mandatory quarantine in hotels and public facilities and 540 individuals were sent to hospitals for treatment.
A total of 103,406 individuals were allowed to return home.