A repeat announcement of the above contest, with attractive cash prizes that will be given out on World Antibiotic Awareness Week (13-19 November 2017). We now have a webpage hosted by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, with further details available. Submissions are welcome from 1st June, closing on 30th August for the […]
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was first discovered on 2nd October 1960 by Prof Margaret Patricia Jevons at the Public Health Laboratory in Collindale, London, UK. Methicillin (or celbenin as it was also known as then) became available for prescription in 1959, and the conventional narrative has always been that MRSA arose as a consequence of […]
When I started work as a doctor, dengue was not as common as it is today, and it was alarming to watch the platelet counts crash during the course of the infection. Senior hospitalists would routinely leave standing orders for platelet transfusions, usually once the platelet count of the patients had fallen below some arbitrary […]
The mainstream media reported a new “cluster” of Zika cases in Singapore yesterday. This involved a couple living in Hougang who almost certainly were infected by local mosquitoes. NEA/MOH were notified on 27th March and a helpful map of the cluster is provided on the NEA website. In general, perhaps because the clinical disease […]
My second visit to the compound of the Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), WHO. It has been an interesting three days, finding out the status of the national action plans on antimicrobial resistance of the member states of WPRO, and learning from the participants the challenges faced as well as how they might possibly be […]
Today is World TB Day, and this is the 36th edition since it was first inaugurated on 24th March 1982 by WHO and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD). 135 years ago, Robert Koch presented perhaps the most important of his multiple seminal works, “Über Tuberkulose”, to the scientists gathered at the […]
A late middle-aged woman with liver cirrhosis (MELD score 18) from non-alcoholic steatohepatitis presented with fever for 2 days. She was hypotensive at the emergency department, but became normotensive after fluid resuscitation. A CT of the abdomen and pelvis showed left hydronephrosis secondary to a small ureteric stone, with inflammatory changes seen around the kidney. […]
Announced by the United Nations this morning, the newly established group – which comprises high level representatives from various UN agencies, other relevant organisations, and experts from human and animal health as well as environmental sectors – will be co-chaired by UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. The other members of […]
Had an all too short visit to St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. St Andrews appears to be better known for golf and the Prince William-Kate Middleton romance, but it also houses a university and medical school (pre-clinical only) that punches well above its weight where research is concerned. It was a treat touring Falkland Palace […]
Had great fun listening to medical students (Group 6) from Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine presenting on their Community Health Project (CHP) this morning. Naturally I felt that their project was the most important of all the ones done this year. Their findings on community carriage of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase […]
MIPHIDIC 