On 19 November 2020, Director General Noor Hisham Abdullah confirmed that 9,167 COVID-19 cases had been identified by the MySejahtera app since its launch in April 2020 via contact tracing methods including local district health offices using MySejahtera's database and the tracking of potential close contacts of COVID-19 patients.[3]
By 27 August 2021, 1.9 million of the 2.32 million students aged between 12 and 17 years enrolled at Malaysian national schools worldwide had registered for COVID-19 vaccinations via the MySejahtera app.[4]
On 7 November 2021, the MySejahtera app experienced a glitch that caused it to incorrectly issue the "home surveillance order" (HSO) and "person under surveillance" (PUS) statuses to several users. The app's administrators apologised to the public for the panic they caused.[6][7] That same day, the United States Embassy in Kuala Lumpur confirmed that Malaysians travelling to the US could show their proof of vaccination on the MySejatera app, as well as a negative COVID-19 test.[8]
On 27 April 2022, Health MinisterKhairy Jamaluddin announced that scanning the MySejahtera QR code when entering premises is no longer compulsory beginning 1 May 2022.[9] According to data released by the Health Ministry's GitHub portal, MySejahtera app usage had plunged 73.8% by 3 May.[10]
On 26 May 2022, Khairy Jamaluddin announced that, in light of the 2022 monkeypox outbreak, MySejahtera users coming from countries with reported cases of monkeypox would be sent an alert on the MySejahtera app starting 27 May 2022. This was done to prevent an outbreak of monkeypox in Malaysia.[11]
On 5 July 2024, the Health Ministry ended its policy of requiring COVID-19 positive individuals to report their COVID-19 self-test results to the MySejahtera app.[13]
Contact tracing
The main function of the MySejahtera app is to assist the department in managing and mitigating the COVID-19 outbreak, enable users to monitor their health condition throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, assist users in getting treatment immediately if they are diagnosed with COVID-19 disease, and locate the nearest health facilities for COVID-19 screening and treatment. It is also widely used in the country for checking in when visiting a new place via the QR code scanning method, and is now also used for COVID-19 vaccine registrations.[14][15] MySJ Trace is an extension of MySejahtera that uses Bluetooth Low Energy to scan for other users in proximity and alert the user if they have had contact with a COVID-19 patient.[16][17]