Before moving on, I thought it would be good to address the “tick issue”. There were a couple of Facebook comments about the Haemaphysalis longicornus photo from Wikipedia, and how this resembled the dog ticks that are prevalent in Singapore. I am by no means a tick expert, but I understand that the predominant tick in Singapore […]
Had to do quite a bit of reading up about this emerging but obscure (at least for Singapore) infectious disease recently. It is actually pretty interesting. Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is caused by a member of the Phlebovirus family – the eponymous SFTS virus. The first official report of this disease and its […]
The World Health Organization (WHO) has been visibly busy this month in the area of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The agency released a report on the global pipeline of new antibiotics (including anti-tuberculosis drugs) on 19th September. It can be downloaded here. There is also a new infographic on what WHO considers priority pathogens in addition […]
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 […]
Two more weeks to the closing date of the video contest! We hope that there will be more entries, including ones that will match Deanna See’s prizewinning creation last year. Details here, for those who would like to come up with a 3-minute video clip wihin the next 2 weeks.
Played a bit role along with the SGH Department of Microbiology blogger in an Environmental Health Institute (EHI) study looking at Staphylococcus aureus isolates obtained from retail food and food handlers’ gloves in Singapore over the period 2011 to 2014. The work is now published in the open access journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control. […]
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 […]
The recent BMJ study and the international hype around it did pique one local newspaper journalist enough that further questions were asked of Ms Winnie Lee and myself. A pretty nice and informative article was published in the Lianhe Zaobao yesterday (in Chinese). Antibiotics are over-prescribed in Singapore, as they are in virtually all developed countries. […]
MIPHIDIC 