Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) announced the National Adult Immunization Schedule (NAIS) yesterday. This is a welcome extension of the National Childhood Immunization Programme (into adulthood), and the amendment to allow the use of Medisave (Singapore’s compulsory national medical savings scheme) for these vaccines (up to SGD400 a year) will facilitate take up of the […]
I wished to write about 2 remarkable popular science books on microbes and infectious diseases that I recently read. The first is British science journalist Ed Yong’s “I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life”. An extraordinary book – marred only by the slight (but perhaps understandable) hyperbole – on microbes […]
We did get a number of entries (far more than I expected!) for the inaugural Antibiotic Resistance Video Contest jointly organised by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and Ngee Ann Polytechnic. The closing date was on 30th September (potentially late, late entries – do contact the organisers directly), and now we are […]
Had the distinct pleasure of listening to Prof Barbara Murray deliver a lecture on “Why Antimicrobial Resistance May Be A Threat To The World – Or Not” at the National University Hospital’s Grand Rounds last Friday. Prof Murray was the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 2014, and director of the Division […]
I was glad for the opportunity to the Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) today at Siem Reap, Cambodia. This is a private non-profit hospital established in 1999 as a result of Japanese photographer Kenro Izu’s efforts – the touching story can be read on the hospital’s website here. It is a paediatric hospital for Cambodian […]
The essay contest has closed. There were a total of 49 essays submitted – 35 in the Secondary School section and 14 in the Junior College/Polytechnic section. We have a trio of distinguished and experienced judges who very kindly agreed to review the essays. The judging should be completed by mid-October, while the prize presentation […]
I was unfortunately not able to spend much time at the SIIDC, which is taking place now at the Waterfront Conference Centre at the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. This is actually the second such general infectious disease (ID) conference organized by the Singapore ID community, the first being the Courage Fund Infectious Diseases Conference which […]
An article published in the venerable British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Wednesday has been picked up by several news agencies. I had described this culture of doctors recommending that “antibiotic courses should be completed” in an earlier post on URTI, and how the doctors I had encountered all felt that failure to finish antibiotics would “result in […]
The first entries for the student essays are starting to trickle in, which is great (at least there are entrees now!). The closing date for the essay contest is 30th August 2017 (2359H), and more details are available on the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health website. We would certainly welcome more entrees from […]
The second edition of the Commonwealth Science Conference is held in Singapore from 13-16 June, jointly organized by UK’s Royal Society and Singapore’s National Research Foundation. It is attended by over 400 scientists from over 40 states within the Commonwealth, with the majority of the presentations held at the Matrix in Biopolis. There are four […]
MIPHIDIC 