James Kon
Several new features are added to the BruHealth app to facilitate the management of COVID-19 patients and close contacts in accordance with the implementation of the latest standard operating procedures (SOPs), Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar announced yesterday.
The minister outlined the changes including the Home Isolation Notice feature to replace the Digital Quarantine Order feature discontinued on February 24. The feature is specific to patients in Categories 1 and 2A, comprising daily health status report, in-app notifications on the date of the antigen rapid test (ART) screening and self-isolation period adjusted automatically with the update of ART results.
With the new Home Isolation Notice feature, the minister said, “the short message service (SMS) previously issued to confirm that a person is a COVID-19 case is hereby discontinued.”
According to Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham, the launch of the ART feature in the BruHealth app on February 26 allows the public to report their ART results or request for ART kit supplies, previously done by calling Darussalam line 123.
“Completing the self-triage in the ART feature will also allow a case to be classified as Categories 1, 2A or 2B,” he said.
As has been the case since the BruHealth app was introduced in 2020, the red code is an indicator that a person is a close contact to a COVID-19 positive case. Currently, the public can declare themselves as close contacts in the BruHealth app through a number of ways including providing information in the Self-Assessment Tool feature on the first day of a self-assessment report by reporting the status of the close contact through the Daily Self-Report feature; by submitting the first ART result after having been in close contact with a positive COVID-19 case through the ART feature; or by requesting for an ART kit through the ART feature.
The minister also said the self-isolation period for close contacts has been reduced from 14 days to five days.
