PETALING JAYA: The option for travellers arriving in Malaysia to undergo home quarantine also applies to those with permanent resident status or under the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme.

They must have a home or residence in the country, produce a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result and be fully vaccinated.

This comes following the announcement by Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin (pic) that the “Jurassic process” of submitting email applications to undergo isolation at home would be replaced with a simplified Home Quarantine Application (HQA) portal from yesterday to ease the process.

Submissions are to be made through the eCovid19 HQA portal, with each application allowing a maximum of 10 travellers under one quarantine address.

Applications are also required to be submitted at least seven to 10 days prior to their arrival.

The current application process on the portal requires applicants to fill up a form with information of their full name, contact details, quarantine address, type of application and date of arrival.

It will be mandatory for travellers intending to undergo home quarantine to submit their details through the portal.

This includes full name, identification or passport number, nationality, vaccine type, date of both vaccine doses, and date of birth.

Applications can also be submitted either by the travellers themselves, on behalf of their family members, or by a representative of the person travelling.

Those who have been fully vaccinated are also required to provide proof of their inoculation in either a PNG, JPEG or PDF file.

Each application will then be reviewed by the Health Ministry with the applicant being notified within three days of submitting a complete application.

Eligibility depends on the number of people living at the residence, and the number of rooms and bathrooms there.

Other factors that will be taken into account are whether there are pregnant women, anyone aged 60 and above, or children below the age of 12 at the residence.

If an applicant is found to have provided false information, approval will be revoked automatically.

This is also an offence under Section 22(d) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342), and if convicted, punishable under Section 24 of the same Act, according to information on the portal.

Previously, those who intended to apply for home quarantine upon arrival were required to submit an email request to the ministry.

However, since the government allowed fully vaccinated travellers to undergo home quarantine upon arrival, there was a surge in the number of requests with a backlog of 6,000 applications via email.

The HQA portal can be accessed at https://ecovid19.moh.gov.my/outbreak-portal-hqa.