There are four plaques in St Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore commemorating the Sepoy (Singapore) Mutiny in 1915. On 15th February 1915 which was the last day of Chinese New Year, half of the 5th Native Light Infantry – which was then stationed at Alexandra Barracks – mutinied, killing dozens of British troops and civilians before […]
I was privileged to attend the official opening of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) today. Operational since the end of 2018, NCID is the 21st century iteration of a facility to contain infectious diseases threats in Singapore. It was great to catch up with old colleagues and friends – the event was almost […]
While looking through old records for a project on the history of Middleton Hospital/Communicable Diseases Centre, we came across numerous references to enteric fever and typhoid in annual reports from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment, and even those from the Medical Department in the Colonial Office (pre-independence) archives. It was clear that starting […]
There were 18 cases of typhoid fever reported in Singapore over 3 weeks, with the onset of symptoms between 13th July and 4th August this year. This is a far larger number than usual – the disease now occurs primarily in returning travelers or migrant workers from countries where the bacterium remains endemic. The cause […]
In 2008, a few colleagues and I wrote a position paper on antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance in Singapore, making a number of recommendations which we felt would be important to improve antibiotic use and mitigate the threat of antimicrobial resistance here. Those were not particularly controversial recommendations, and reflected the thinking of the international […]
I was asked to write a commentary on adult vaccination in Singapore, during the course of which I read a number of articles surrounding adult vaccinations in general and Singapore in particular. A handful of things stood out for me: There is no clear or easy way to find the data on vaccination rates among […]
I had the privilege of attending a tour of the former Communicable Diseases Centre/Middleton Hospital today, organized by Jerome Lim of the Long and Winding Road and the Singapore Land Authority. CDC has now been added to the series of tours of state-owned sites (Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets) that includes old Changi Hospital and […]
