NH ENG _Mac2022

Covid-19 Special
Speedy and
Seamless:
Malaysia’s First
Virtual COVID-19
Screening App
It was incredibly challenging for medical frontliner Dr Chan Hai
Feng and his team when COVID-19 first arrived in our country.
Workload piled up due to the increasing number of people who
have been infected with the coronavirus. At one point, they were
screening up to 100,000 patients a day. However, regardless of
their hectic schedule, Dr Chan and his peers also took upon
themselves to organise funds for the needy, donating PPEs, and
resources to people in need, while advocating avidly for the wellbeing
of fellow frontliners.
During mass screenings, Dr Chan
realised that the entire process was far
too time-consuming. On top of this, it
also poses a huge risk by further
exposing his staff and the public
unnecessarily to the dangers of
contracting the COVID-19 virus. In
2021, when the Malaysian government
started easing restrictions, Dr Chan
identified an urgent need to make
COVID-19 screening safer, easier and
more effective. With the support of his
team, he injected a capital of RM
500,000 to develop CLEA, Malaysia’s
first virtual COVID-19 screening
platform.
After three months of beta testing,
CLEA launched in October 2021,
becoming an incredible success and
instantly gaining profound public
traction. In just six weeks of the app’s
launch, CLEA had acquired more than
20,000 downloads, made 100,000
impressions and verified over 18,000
virtual COVID-19 screenings.
The CLEA platform allows users to
verify and authenticate their self-test
by medically-qualified doctors and
provides a convenient and seamless
virtual solution to COVID-19. More
than that, users are guided in
conducting self-tests by in-app
step-by-step instructions, resulting in
more accurate results. With the
invention of CLEA, Dr Chan and his
team are working towards empowering
people to lead their lives safely and
responsibly whilst ensuring they are
safe from COVID-19.
Natural Health was fortunate to have
the opportunity to speak to Dr Chan
Hai Feng, Founder and Chief Executive
Officer of CLEA, about this
revolutionary platform. In this
interview, Dr Chan shares his
experience and story about making
CLEA a success.
What inspired you to develop
virtual screening?
The team behind CLEA were actively
involved in mass screening activities
over the course of the pandemic.
During then, there was a time when
the whole team was down because we
were in contact with positive patients.
Everyone was unmotivated. However, I
was convinced that there must be a
better way of screening more
effectively while lowering the risk of
exposure to everyone. After creating
the app, we had replaced almost all
our physical onsite screening with this
method. This method has helped us
save time, lower the risk of exposure,
and make the COVID-19 screening
more efficient.
42 Natural Health * March 2022 VOL 126