Izah Azahari
The BruHealth app will receive an update with two new features vastly improving public convenience. The updates – the Recovery Certificate Feature and the Antigen Rapid Test (ART) Feature with QR code – will be launched tonight at 10pm.
The features were announced by Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar in a statement during the daily press conference yesterday.
Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham explained that the Recovery Certificate Feature is specifically to confirm that former positive patients have completed their quarantine and have recovered from the COVID-19 infection.
“This is an official digital certificate which can be downloaded and printed as a hardcopy if any party requires official proof of recovery from the Ministry of Health (MoH),” the minister said.
During the question and answer session, the minister explained that the certificate also addresses the needs of those going abroad as many countries require reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) swab testing.
“If a person has been infected with the COVID-19 virus, the duration may vary between 60 to 90 days, and we must look into the requirements of the countries being visited,” said the minister. He said the certificate will state that a person has been previously infected within the specified time and will be exempted from carrying out the RT-PCR. This is also the case when they return to the Sultanate later, where the certificate is also required.
The minister added that the certificate can be downloaded via the BruHealth app for public ease.
Elaborating on the ART Feature with QR code, Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham said that it makes use of the scannable QR code on ART kits supplied by the MoH to ensure that the kit used is unique and has not been previously used. This is especially useful for COVID-19 patients who receive the care package, including civil servants, guests at official government events, and inbound travellers.
“However, this ART feature can still be used to submit ART reports that do not have a QR code,” the minister added.
Permanent Secretary at the MoH Haji Maswadi bin Haji Mohsin explained that there are two options on the BruHealth app where the first is for ART kits supplied by the MoH, while the second option is for ART kits without any QR code.
Haji Maswadi said that the second option can also be used to report ART kits that comes with its own QR codes bought personally or otherwise not supplied by the MoH.
