An elderly man presented with fever and malaise for a week followed by right buttock pain which was worse on sitting for 2 days. He has well-controlled hypertension and ischemic heart disease. An X-ray of the lumbosacral spine showed narrowing of the L2-L3 disc space following which an MRI of the spine was arranged. Blood […]
It is now well known that antibiotic use in animal husbandry far exceeds antibiotic use in humans. There is now considerable corporate and individual interest in reducing the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry – see for example McDonald’s (!) which even has a corporate vision for antibiotic stewardship in food animals. One issue is […]
Had a little spare time on Tuesday, and visited this very small museum which is sited at St Mary’s Hospital in London. It was opened in 1993 with financial support from SmithKline Beecham (before the pharmaceutical company merged with Glaxo Wellcome to become GlaxoSmithKline), and the main attraction is the reconstruction of Alexander Fleming’s laboratory […]
A young Indian national presented with his first ever episode of generalized tonic-clonic seizures and was hospitalized. He was previously healthy, vegetarian, and had been based in Singapore for the past 3 years, working in the construction industry. A plain CT head performed at the emergency department showed a spot of calcification at the right […]
In reference to the recent case vignette, the eponymous Dr André Alfred Lemierre – Professor of Bacteriology at the Claude Bernard Hospital – described the syndrome bearing his name in several papers, the most detailed being a report to the Lancet that was published on 28th March 1936. However, Dr Lemierre claimed that he was […]
The rather boring term “type VI secretion system” (it is the 6th bacterial secretion system discovered) refers to a remarkable molecular contractile “sting” that can be assembled and disassembled, and is found in multiple Gram-negative bacteria. Its primary purpose – as the term suggests – is to secrete proteins into another cell. It is deployed […]
A previously healthy young man (early 20’s) presented with severe left-sided sore throat, followed a day later by fever with chills, for 4 days. This was accompanied by lethargy and complete loss of appetite. He had seen a family doctor on the first day and was prescribed painkillers and antipyretics without significant relief. On clinical […]
A personal and primarily local look back at the year. What are the major infectious diseases events in modern Singapore in 2017? Outbreaks The World Health Organization (WHO) has a list of outbreaks by year on its website, and the 2017 list is depressingly long. There are the usual “suspects” like cholera (Africa) and diphtheria […]
Managed to squeeze in some reading towards the end of the year. These include the celebrated pair of books by Israeli historian Professor Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Written as “popular science” books, with engaging simplicity, the first book provides a broad […]
In June last year, the Ministry of Health Singapore initiated a large-scale on-site voluntary tuberculosis (TB) screening for the residents of a 10-storey apartment block after a cluster of 6 multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases in the Block were diagnosed over the preceding 4 years. The results were released in an academic paper published in the […]
MIPHIDIC 