Nontuberculous mycobactera (NTM) is a collective term for all Mycobacterium spp. that are not part of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex or Mycobacterium leprae. Virtually all are environmental mycobacteria (rather than the human- and animal-adapted pathogens that cause tuberculosis and leprosy), although they are able to cause human infection in a limited number of situations, i.e. when the human is immunocompromised […]
I had some time to reflect after finishing a rather interesting meeting in Thailand organised by a pharmaceutical company. In their usual way, the company had invited representatives from different countries in the region to obtain perspectives on the issue of antimicrobial resistance – specifically carbapenem resistance and carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) – in our countries. Naturally, they […]
Measles has been in the news (even in the Straits Times) lately, because of the U.S. outbreak that originated from Disneyland in California. To briefly recap, at least 40 visitors/workers at Disneyland, California were exposed to measles in December last year and have developed the disease. The index case (or cases) has not been identified, […]
I have not commented on the Ebola epidemic for a while. But things are finally looking up. The number of new cases reported each week has continued to fall in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while Mali has now been declared free of Ebola after 42 days without a new case of Ebola reported. The […]
There are a large number of news reports on the flu season in USA currently, including this fairly comprehensive one from CNN, after the statistics for mortality from pneumonia and influenza in the USA crossed 6.8% (the epidemic threshold) on Week 51 of 2014. There have been 15 paediatric deaths to date (as of 20th […]
A year ago, a report was published on Public Health Action (the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease’s open access journal) by members of the Singapore Tuberculosis Elimination Programme (STEP) and Ministry of Health, looking at tuberculosis cases among Singapore residents by ethnicity, notified between 2002 and 2011. There were 15,622 resident cases of […]
MIPHIDIC 