NH ENG _Mac2022

Covid-19 Special
By: Dr Chan Hai Feng
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CLEA
What are the benefits of
virtual screening in our
efforts to combat Covid-19?
COVID-19 started in December 2019.
There are no medications for the virus.
The only measure to stop the spread is
to develop vaccines, which is not a
silver bullet since the virus has already
spread widely. Screenings play a
significant role in preventing the
spread of COVID-19, where we can
quickly isolate and quarantine
positively tested patients.
However, physical screening is a huge
waste of human resources and time.
On top of that, it comes at a high cost
and a greater risk of exposure of
COVID-19 to all parties involved. We
believe that with the correct structure
and framework, we can have a virtual
screening platform that allows for
higher efficiency and capacity while
maintaining the integrity of COVID-19
screening. With this, we can screen on
a larger scale and prevent the further
spread of COVID-19.
What were the challenges in
the process of developing
the app? How did you
overcome them?
Challenges were mainly on the
technical part. We had plenty of ideas
on how to verify and perform the
screening. However, not everything is
feasible or practical to incorporate into
the app. We are lucky to have
colleagues with exceptional tech
backgrounds working on app
development. They try to design and
code at their best effort.
Can you tell us more about
the app, such as its features,
technology, etc.?
There are four main verification processes
for the whole screening – ID verification,
test kits verification, sample collection
verification and results verification. The
entire screening process is designed
according to guidelines and protocols
that the doctors usually practice in clinics.
Furthermore, all the transmitted data in
CLEA are encrypted to ensure its security.
We have multiple auto-scaling server
clusters to cater for the app, databases
and back offices. From time to time, we
also perform penetration tests and
distributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks to ensure all of our servers are
secured from every endpoint.
How does CLEA shape the
future of Malaysia’s digital
landscape?
More and more clinics will soon adapt
to digital healthcare as everyone will
realise that this lies ahead in the future.
We foresee CLEA complementing the
private and the government medical
facilities in many ways, sensitising
healthcare, and at the same time
improving the overall community
healthcare index.
What are your plans moving
forward?
Besides our plan to actively reach out
to the public and increase their
engagement with our services, we are
also in the midst of expanding and
looking to offer this service to more
neighbouring countries. Thus, we hope
to assist them in combating COVID-19
with a scalable screening platform.
44 Natural Health * March 2022 VOL 126