An intriguing study was published in last month’s New England Journal of Medicine. It was picked up by several news agencies, including Wired which published a piece by science journalist Maryn McKenna (the author of the “Big Chicken” book) that briefly made it to the top of Digg. A large cluster randomized trial of 1,533 communities […]
While preparing for a recent talk, I did a brief search for articles on bacterial antibiotic resistance prior to the development of modern day antibiotics. We understand that bacteria predate humans by a few billion years, and many of today’s antibiotics are derived from molecules made by fungi (i.e. penicillin and cephalosporins) and soil bacteria […]
Saw this article in the Straits Times this morning, and was reminded that I had wanted to follow up on the issue of drug resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. There has not been a case of “super gonorrhoea” in Singapore to my knowledge, but it is a matter of time before such cases appear locally. Neisseria gonorrhoeae is […]
Following on last year’s essay and video contest on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), we are organizing another essay contest supported by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and Singapore General Hospital. The contest will open on 1st June 2018, with the final date of submission of essays being 31st August 2018. […]
I was honoured to provide a citation for Prof Koh Tse Hsien, a.k.a. the microbiology blogger, yesterday. He is the fourth person invited to deliver the Monteiro lecture, which was established in 2012 by the Chapter of Infectious Diseases Physicians, College of Physicians, Academy of Medicine and the Society of Infectious Diseases (Singapore). The citation is […]
Had an opportunity to give a presentation on influenza vaccination at the local School of Public Health‘s Health and Safety Day yesterday, and so had to read up a bit. Influenza is a highly contagious illness caused by the influenza virus, of which there are four main types that we know of, although we primarily […]
Lassa fever is a zoonotic viral haemorrhagic fever that is endemic to West Africa. It is caused by the Lassa virus, which is named after a small town in Nigeria where the virus was first discovered in 1969 (although the disease has been around far longer than that). The story of that discovery is present […]
A final clinical vignette (for a while, at any rate) before more substantive posts. A middle-aged man with a decades-long history of bronchiectasis presented with worsening cough with productive sputum, decreasing effort tolerance, low grade fever, and weight loss over 2 months. He has no other co-morbid conditions. Chest X-ray showed worsening bilateral infiltrates – […]
It is now well known that antibiotic use in animal husbandry far exceeds antibiotic use in humans. There is now considerable corporate and individual interest in reducing the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry – see for example McDonald’s (!) which even has a corporate vision for antibiotic stewardship in food animals. One issue is […]
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