The final week of April each year marks World Immunization Week. The theme this year is “Protected Together: Vaccines Work”. I have not written much about vaccinations in the past, simply because this is not one of my particular interest areas, and there are others who are far more competent in this regard. But in […]
Once again, the Antibiotics Awareness Fund will be hosting the above-mentioned essay contests for students in Singapore. The webpage is here. This event is supported by Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore General Hospital and the Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE). Closing date for both contests will be on 31st August 2019. The “Farm […]
Today is International Women’s Day. The theme this year is #BalanceforBetter, because gender balance benefits us all. Although this day is not a holiday in Singapore, there are still several commemorative events that have taken place. It also got me thinking about women who are infectious diseases specialists in Singapore. With the help of Google […]
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 chance exchange of messages with a prominent GP classmate led me to understand that there may be many doctors in Singapore who are uncomfortable with providing flu shots to children with egg allergy. The issue here is that the vast majority of influenza vaccines contain a tiny amount of ovalbumin – an egg protein […]
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 […]
The Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp (Belgium) has been organizing annual colloquia since 1959. This year’s colloquium was on antibiotic resistance, and was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from 5th to 7th December. I was fortunate enough to be invited for the event, which featured speakers from the ITM (naturally) as well as regional and […]
Trying out a new online timeline generating website – Preceden. Data obtained from various sources. Antibiotic classes are included only if there is (or was) at least one commercial product in the market. Hence new classes of antibiotics such as odilorhabdins (2013), malacidins (2018), and teixobactins (2015), etc. are not included here.
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 […]
MIPHIDIC 