A young odd-jobs man presented with cough for 3 months, associated with weight loss and fatigue at work. Finally seeking medical attention at a public hospital, he was found to have cavitation and infiltrates in the right upper lobe of the lung, with sputum microscopy showing high counts of acid-fast bacilli (AFB 4+). He was […]
Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) belong to the current “pantheon” of “superbugs” causing human infections primarily in the hospital setting. Enterococci are a type of Gram-positive bacteria that are part of the intestinal flora. They are opportunistic pathogens, causing infections primarily in immunocompromised patients, especially when the gut mucosal barrier has been broken. Two species cause virtually […]
I read a recent review in Clinical Infectious Diseases (the second-ranked premier ID journal, depending on ranking criteria) on the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) ranking of antibiotics a couple of days ago. The WHO has ranked antimicrobial agents according to their importance for human medicine since 2007, and has updated the list every 3 years or so. […]
News of this outbreak – involving 6 MDR-TB cases to date – was released to the press yesterday evening by the Singapore Ministry of Health. The Channelnewsasia report also includes video footage of our Director of Medical Services as well as Prof Sonny Wang, long-term director of the TB Control Unit. These 6 cases were […]
The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance was commissioned in July 2014 by the U.K. government to analyse the global problem of antimicrobial resistance and to propose concrete steps to deal with it. A remarkably enlightened move, I may add, given that U.K is not actually one of the countries with high rates of antimicrobial resistance, and […]
It is the last day of 2015, and therefore timely to reflect back on the significant events of the year. Oftentimes, the true impact of certain events are not known until much later in the future, and media hype (or lack thereof) creates its own bias which is hard to overcome. Here is a personal […]
Just before Christmas, the SGH Diagnostic Bacteriology blogger put up a post on how to isolate Group B streptococcus (GBS) from raw fish samples. SGH Department of Pathology used to have a Food and Water Microbiology Lab, but that was closed several years ago, before the move to the new Academia building. The clinical microbiologists […]
MIPHIDIC 