HQA: 5,947 travellers from abroad apply for home quarantine since a week ago - Health DG

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 5,947 of travellers arriving from abroad have applied for quarantine at home through the Home Quarantine Application (HQA) portal since it was launched on Sept 20.

Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said for one week since its launching, the HQA portal had received 4,883 completed applications and out of this number, 1,741 applications had been processed.

"Of the number, 1,612 individuals have received approval for home or residential quarantine," he said in a statement here today on the COVID-19 developments.

Dr Noor Hisham said out of the total number of applications, 3,921 were Malaysians, 1,910 were foreign nationals while 116 were permanent residents.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) had launched the HQA portal as one of the preparations in facing the increasing number of travellers arriving from abroad for various reasons.

The portal was specially created to ease the applying for home or residential quarantine for travellers from abroad arriving in Malaysia through the various international entry points.

Through the HQA portal, the individuals need to submit their applications within seven to 10 days before their arrival in Malaysia.

However, Dr Noor Hisham said this online application system was still at the transition stage and expected to be fully used from next month.

He said the MOH was targeting more applications to be settled within three days after this with the method to be improved from time to time.

Meanwhile, he advised all the applicants given this facility to fully comply with the directives issued and the home quarantine standard operating procedure (SOP).

"This is important in reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection to family members and the community and avoiding the spread of new variants of the virus, especially the variants of concern (VOC) or variants of interest (VOI) to the country," he said.

More information on the HQA portal is available at https://hso.moh.gov.my/outbreak-portal-hqa/.

-- BERNAMA