A man in late middle-age, who in his youth had traveled extensively around the region, presented with nagging right upper abdominal discomfort for 2 weeks. He had no fever. The chest X-ray is shown below. Question: What is the abnormality seen and what infectious disease could this possibly be? [Updated 6th June 2015] There is a […]
There is a lot of interesting data available on tuberculosis (TB) in Singapore, available from multiple sources. I was quite privileged to receive a copy of Dr Heng Bee Hoon’s (Director, Health Services and Outcome Research, National Healthcare Group) 1988 Master of Science in Public Health thesis “The Secular Trends of Tuberculosis in Singapore” from the […]
To complete the MRSA discussion, it is necessary to mention the final group of MRSA – livestock-associated MRSA (LA-MRSA). Just as healthcare-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) and community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) are (at least initially) distinct from each other via differences in their genetic make-up, LA-MRSA represents yet another separate path of evolution for MRSA, with its own […]
An elderly (in her 60’s) woman went to the beach with her grandchildren, accompanying them as they dug for crabs and picked shells near a creek. Three days later, she presented with high fever accompanied by severe right lower limb pain and redness. She has a background history of diabetes mellitus which was not well controlled. […]
Dr. Raymond Fong – a consultant infectious diseases at Changi General Hospital – had commented in response to my earlier post on legal aspects of tuberculosis management that one other challenging issue sometimes faced by doctors was with regards to air travel and tuberculosis. There have been a number of incidents regarding passengers and crew members of […]
The Singapore General Hospital Diagnostic Bacteriology Section blogger has just posted a succinct and comprehensive overview of community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) clones in Singapore. It seems like ancient history now, but CA-MRSA really rose into the global consciousness only in the early 21st century, when scientists from Europe (particularly the researchers from INSERM E0230, Lyon France – the […]
The standard short-course therapy for pulmonary tuberculosis involves taking 4 to 5 different medications for 6 months, and both duration of therapy and medication count (normally about 10 or so pills each day) can be significantly increased as a consequence of drug resistance and/or drug intolerance requiring a change of regimen. Compliance to anti-tuberculosis therapy can […]
A young woman (in her 30’s) presented with a 3-day history of severe headache, low-grade fever (37.8 degrees Celsius) and photophobia. Clinical examination was unremarkable except for mild photophobia and mild neck stiffness. A CT head (non-contrast) done at the Emergency Department was normal, as was her full blood count and renal function panel. She […]
The Department of Sexually Transmitted Infections Control (DSC) clinic is also colloquially known as Kelantan Clinic (and keying “kelantan clinic” into Google or other search engines leads you to the DSC Clinic website rather than any clinic within the Malaysian state of Kelantan), because it has been located at Kelantan Lane since its official launch […]
MIPHIDIC 