I had the pleasure of attending the 5th ICICAS held at Mandarin Orchard in Singapore from 19th to 21st October. Held every two years – which means this conference has been running for 10 years already – the programme this year was both innovative and interesting, and featured excellent international (and local, of course) speakers. […]
I have been waiting for this study (behind the Elsevier paywall) to be published for some time. In the largest and most detailed study to date, Dutch investigators followed up 2,001 travellers and 215 of their non-travelling household members for one year, and found that 34.3% of travellers had acquired extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL-E) during their […]
Next Tuesday will be the start of the National Environment Agency’s (NEA’s) Project Wolbachia rollout. Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes will be released initially at Braddell Heights, followed by Nee Soon East and Tampines West as small scale trials of both efficacy and mosquito behaviour. As I understand it, there are three major dengue control strategies involving Wolbachia-infected Aedes […]
A young man with no recent travel was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). He underwent allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) with posaconazole and levifloxacin prophylaxis after completing standard induction and consolidation chemotherapy, complicated by culture-negative febrile neutropenia. Just after engraftment, he developed fever again (absolute neutrophil count of 370 cells/cubic millimetre of blood). […]
It was both a surprise and an honour to be invited for the lecture organised by the Science and Innovation Team of the British High Commission. Prof Sally Davies has been UK’s chief medical officer (equivalent in rank to permanent secretary in the civil service) since 2010, the first woman to attain that position. The […]
The number of reported Zika cases in Singapore has plunged over the past couple of weeks, as can be seen from the National Environment Agency’s website (screenshot below). Only one cluster – the original Aljunied-Sims Drive area – remains active (with new cases being reported) currently. How much of this is due to actual control […]
The recent post on the Dengvaxia vaccine raised several interesting questions. A prominent local professor of medicine pointed out that the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Member States Dengue Vaccination Advocacy Steering Committee (ADVASC) is actually supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Sanofi-Pasteur, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures and sells Dengvaxia. In […]
Dengvaxia (CYD-TDV) – the first licensed dengue vaccine – is a quadrivalent live attenuated chimeric dengue vaccine developed by Sanofi Pasteur. An attenuated yellow fever virus forms the backbone of the vaccine, with dengue structural proteins attached (the chimera). It has just been licensed in Singapore, and is approved for use in those between the ages […]
The report on the summit organised by the Wellcome Trust in April 2016 to discuss evidence surrounding various policy recommendations for controlling antimicrobial resistance has been published. Policy makers and researchers from 27 countries participated. Three areas for immediate policy action were identified and highlighted: Antibiotic use in agriculture has to be reduced, but without […]
A depressing month book-wise. Only managed to read two fiction books. Read too much on Zika. Death’s End is the conclusion to the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy by Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin. I could only read the English-translated version, but it was nonetheless mindblowing. The final book takes the “dark forest” concept […]
MIPHIDIC 