Saw this article in the Straits Times this morning, and was reminded that I had wanted to follow up on the issue of drug resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. There has not been a case of “super gonorrhoea” in Singapore to my knowledge, but it is a matter of time before such cases appear locally. Neisseria gonorrhoeae is […]
Following on last year’s essay and video contest on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), we are organizing another essay contest supported by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and Singapore General Hospital. The contest will open on 1st June 2018, with the final date of submission of essays being 31st August 2018. […]
I was honoured to provide a citation for Prof Koh Tse Hsien, a.k.a. the microbiology blogger, yesterday. He is the fourth person invited to deliver the Monteiro lecture, which was established in 2012 by the Chapter of Infectious Diseases Physicians, College of Physicians, Academy of Medicine and the Society of Infectious Diseases (Singapore). The citation is […]
Had an opportunity to give a presentation on influenza vaccination at the local School of Public Health‘s Health and Safety Day yesterday, and so had to read up a bit. Influenza is a highly contagious illness caused by the influenza virus, of which there are four main types that we know of, although we primarily […]
Recent outbreaks in Singapore made me wonder whether there is a paradigm for an effective way of communicating an outbreak (a subset of risk communication) to healthcare professionals and the general public. This is perhaps especially relevant in the context of the current focus on fake news. The ubiquity of social media and messaging platforms […]
Lassa fever is a zoonotic viral haemorrhagic fever that is endemic to West Africa. It is caused by the Lassa virus, which is named after a small town in Nigeria where the virus was first discovered in 1969 (although the disease has been around far longer than that). The story of that discovery is present […]
I attended an overseas panel review for health research professorships recently where the issue of declining rates of applications from “non-doctor clinicians” (nurses, pharmacists, other allied health professionals) was discussed. The funding body had already set in place measures to promote gender equality (if two candidates were nominated by an institute for the professorship, at […]
Finally had the chance to read Prof Teo You Yenn’s book “This Is What Inequality Looks Like”. It is essentially a compilation of essays based on her work among rental flat inhabitants in Singapore. What started as ethnographic research on poverty in Singapore quickly turned to study on both poverty and inequality, and how these […]
A final clinical vignette (for a while, at any rate) before more substantive posts. A middle-aged man with a decades-long history of bronchiectasis presented with worsening cough with productive sputum, decreasing effort tolerance, low grade fever, and weight loss over 2 months. He has no other co-morbid conditions. Chest X-ray showed worsening bilateral infiltrates – […]
MIPHIDIC 