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 […]
Several preceding posts (here, here and here) had described the change in healthcare-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) clones in the local setting, and either the SGH Diagnostic Bacteriology blog or I (or both) will probably write on community-associated MRSA clones in Singapore in the near future. But from a practical point of view, does it really matter […]
The Singapore General Hospital (SGH) Diagnostic Bacteriology section’s official blog had recently described the change in healthcare-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) clones in our local hospitals, with a shift from a near-complete monopoly by ST239-MRSA-III to a duopoly between the older clone and ST22-MRSA-IV (or UK-EMRSA-15) within a period of 10 years from 2001 to 2010. I like […]
A major highlight of working on the Singapore MRSA evolution and competition study was obtaining the very old MRSA isolates from the 1980’s and 1990’s. One of the biggest issues in the Singapore clinical microbiology scene – to me – is the loss of historical isolates (and the lack of any attempts to correct this to […]
A timeline movie of different MRSA clones discovered in Singapore. The movie unfortunately plays rather slowly (just over a minute). More detailed descriptions will be provided in subsequent blog posts.
Clostridium difficile is an anaerobic Gram-positive rod that can colonise the intestines of humans and other animals. It is related to the bacterium that causes tetanus (Clostridium tetani) as well as the bacterium that causes food poisoning and occasionally gas gangrene (Clostridium perfringens). Like all Clostridia, it can form spores, which it does as a survival response […]
I was directed by the SGH microbiology blog‘s chief blogger to the Straits Times report yesterday detailing the National Environment Agency (NEA)’s tender for studying the effects of using Wolbachia-carrying male mosquitoes to combat dengue in Singapore. But what is Wolbachia? It is a fascinating genus of bacteria that exists solely as a parasitic (or in some cases mutualistic) […]
This is written as a closure (for now) for the previous influenza articles (here and here), which reported on the influenza A(H3N2) epidemic in the U.S.A and the similar high proportion of influenza A(H3N2) among the Singapore influenza isolates that were typed. Various indicators suggest that the epidemic in the U.S.A. is coming to an […]
Letters, pictures and other outpouring of support and well wishes for the founding father of Singapore at the Singapore General Hospital, where he passed away early this morning. He had lived a full life, and had touched the lives of the people of a nation and beyond, mostly for the better.
It is well known that patients with haematological disorders are at high risk for developing infections caused by different fungi. Part of this is due to the inherent immune system defects that develop as a consequence of their haematological disorders, but the greater part of the risk can be attributed to the treatment that they receive […]
MIPHIDIC 