Local chess international master (IM) Wei Ming GOH called a time-out on his career to play 4 tournaments in Europe this summer. He had previously achieved 2 grandmaster (GM) norms, and will require another 10-game GM norm (or 2 more GM norms under 10 games each) plus a bunch of FIDE rating points to become […]
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. […]
Last few days before the essay contest officially closes on 31st August! We have already received a number of interesting submissions and well-written essays from students from a number of schools, including Tanjong Katong Girls School, Raffles Institution, Dunman High, and Anderson Junior College. Thank you! But naturally, we are hoping for even more! There […]
The follow-up debate (and backlash) to the BMJ article that hit the news just over 2 weeks ago would be interesting, I thought. And indeed it was. Out of 31 “Rapid Responses” to the article at BMJ itself at this point in time (almost all by physicians), 15 were against the conclusions of the article […]
It has been 9 days since the Bangladeshi worker who died of diphtheria was hospitalised at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), so technically we are more or less at the end of one incubation cycle (the usual incubation period for diphtheria is 2-5 days, with a range of up to 10 days). The Ministry of […]
The screenshot of the news article below says it all. I have never seen a case of diphtheria in my career and hence needed to do a little reading up. Respiratory diphtheria is a clinical syndrome characterized by sore throat and fever (the initial presentation is identical to most viral upper respiratory tract infections), followed […]
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 […]
A shameless self-plug. My colleagues and I – or rather, our institutions – were recently awarded a 4-year Collaborative Centre Grant on antimicrobial resistance. The objective of the centre grants, to quote the National Medical Research Council website, is to provide funding that will allow public healthcare institutions to build core research infrastructure and manpower, which […]
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 […]
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