Page 148 - COVID-19 COUNTRY REPORT: Moving Beyond Pandemic EDITION 2022

Moving Beyond Pandemic (Edition 2022) National Institutes of Health

CHAPTER 7:

DIGITAL INITIATIVES

Mohd Aizuddin Abdul Rahman, Muhamad Rasydan Zainal, Sharienna Sharman, Puteri
Nur Najwa Nor Azman

7..1 Introduction
Malaysia quickly adopted digital health initiatives in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The
government and various private organisations worked to respond to the crisis effectively. One of the
key initiatives was the MySejahtera (MySJ) application, a contact tracing application launched in
March 2020 and developed by the government to track the movement of COVID-19 patients. The
initial objective of the application was to monitor the spread of the virus and interrupt transmission
(Figure 7.1).

Telemedicine has also become a crucial aspect of the healthcare system in Malaysia. The MySejahtera
application included an appointment system for remote and physical consultations with nearby
medical professionals. This helped to reduce the spread of the virus and ensure patients received
medical attention without leaving their homes (Appendix 1 & Appendix 2).

The government also leveraged artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions for disease
control. Collaborations with various tech companies resulted in applications such as MyTrace that
utilised predictive algorithms to identify high-risk areas. These initiatives helped to mitigate the
spread of COVID-19 (Appendix 1 & Appendix 3).

(Source: The Star, 4 May 2020)
Figure 7.1: MySejahtera and MyTrace applications introduced by the Malaysian government to help deal with
the COVID-19 pandemic, are now linked to simplify user experience [1]

138 Chapter 7 -Digital Initiatives Chapter 7 -Digital Initiatives 139