Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin has raised Malaysia's plan to expand the MySejahtera app for purposes other than its original Covid-19 screening and vaccine verification purposes during the recent 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.
News portal Code Blue reported that Khairy, when speaking at a strategic roundtable on behavioural science, talked about how the app's Covid-19 functions are now seen as "tainted" but yet could be repurposed to tackle the non-communicable disease (NCD) crisis in Malaysia.
"I understand the complete fatigue with the Covid-19 app, as minister as well, but you won’t get the same once in a generational population-wide enrolment onto an app like this,” Khairy reportedly told delegates at the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO).
He cited that MySejahtera has been downloaded by 30 million people in the 32-million Malaysian population.
“I thought to myself – how do we pivot this app now, with its credibility largely tainted because of Covid-19 check-ins and things like that, and turn it into an app that we can use for NCD screening?
“Booking your appointments, carrying around not huge electronic health records, but a light record so that you can share this with whichever physician you go to," said Khairy.
Expansion of app use
According to Code Blue, Khairy did not explain the types of data that would be included in a "light record" on MySejahtera.
As an example, Khairy reportedly cited Malaysia’s National Immunisation Programme (NIP) for infants and children - offered against 13 major childhood diseases - as "low-hanging fruit" that could be used for the expansion of the MySejahtera app.
"Now we’re saying, no more physical (vaccination) cards, bring your app, we’ll put it in there," said Khairy.
Last week, Khairy also said MySejahtera will be reactivated due to growing concerns surrounding the monkeypox virus, targeting inbound passengers who will be monitored for any symptoms within 21-days.
The application's latest update introduced this month also included an “Infectious Disease Tracker” that allows people to view hotspots of infectious diseases, such as hand, foot, and mouth disease, rabies, measles, and dengue. - Mkini
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