Measles – a highly contagious viral disease with a characteristic rash – has been in the news of late. The most recent outbreak that made the news was in the Philippines, centering around Metro Manila, Luzon and Visayas. There have been at least 87 reported deaths and more than 5,600 cases reported this year, as […]
A small update to a post 3 years ago in air travel and tuberculosis. There has not been much in the way of new evidence since 2015. There was a publication in 2017 by the Japanese, detailing contact investigations on 42 index TB cases that had boarded a plane between 2012 and 2015, resulting in […]
That was the talk request from the pharmacists involved in antibiotic stewardship at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), and I agreed to it on a whim. Turned out to be quite challenging, because of course there is very little in common between prescribing antibiotics and playing chess! I was quite pleased to re-learn Dr Siegbert […]
Primarily organised by the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, this event took place during World Antibiotic Awareness Week on 13th and 14th November. There were a lot of great regional and local speakers, and the event was well attended even by officials from local ministries – always a good sigh for the National Strategic […]
The indefatigable Dr Clarence Tam and his team have run this event for the past few years. It is hugely popular, helped by the large number of parents and children who drop by Jurong Regional Library daily. This weekend was no different, and the list of volunteers have grown to include those not just from […]
The second Antibiotic Awareness Essay Contest – jointly organized by SSHSPH, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Singapore General Hospital – received more entrants than last year. Thankfully, the judges managed to read through the whole lot in time and the winners are listed below. We particularly enjoyed Ms Megan Sim’s clever poem, which is included as […]
The 13th edition of Singapore’s Public Health & Occupational Medicine Conference (or PHOM as it is called) was held at the One Farrer Hotel on 4th and 5th of October. I had attended a few of the earlier editions, and the number of attendees has increased with each year. The public health community in Singapore […]
On 26th September, the United Nations General Assembly held its first ever High Level Meeting on Ending TB. This is the second UN General Assembly in 2 years to focus on an infectious disease issue, the earlier event being on antimicrobial resistance in 2016. One of the reasons for the meeting was that even though […]
I was invited to attend the opening ceremony of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Scientific Congress last Friday, the prime attraction of which was the launch of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute (SDGHI). There was also a subsequent plenary session in the late morning which I was unfortunately unable to attend. Led by Prof Mike Merson, […]
By a curious twist of coincidence, I received two notices of powdered infant formula milk recall due to Cronobacter sakazakii today. The first was from the SGH Microbiology blogger, who forwarded the abstract to a paper published by Chilean scientists in Frontiers in Microbiology last month. Following the June 2017 alert issued by the Chilean Ministry of […]
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