The detailed report on Singapore’s multi-faceted approach at containing and investigating last year’s Zika outbreak has finally been published online at Lancet Infectious Diseases. I had written superficially about some of the events in a series of blog posts at that time, but this published work describes comprehensively both the clinical and public health aspects of managing […]
One has to appreciate the messiness that results from science and research during the initial phase of evidence gathering. Just after the letter in NEJM describing the lack of resurgence of microcephaly cases in Brazil in 2016, the U.S. CDC published data from their Zika Pregnancy Registry, showing in a paper published on 4th April in the […]
The mainstream media reported a new “cluster” of Zika cases in Singapore yesterday. This involved a couple living in Hougang who almost certainly were infected by local mosquitoes. NEA/MOH were notified on 27th March and a helpful map of the cluster is provided on the NEA website. In general, perhaps because the clinical disease […]
Next Tuesday will be the start of the National Environment Agency’s (NEA’s) Project Wolbachia rollout. Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes will be released initially at Braddell Heights, followed by Nee Soon East and Tampines West as small scale trials of both efficacy and mosquito behaviour. As I understand it, there are three major dengue control strategies involving Wolbachia-infected Aedes […]
The number of reported Zika cases in Singapore has plunged over the past couple of weeks, as can be seen from the National Environment Agency’s website (screenshot below). Only one cluster – the original Aljunied-Sims Drive area – remains active (with new cases being reported) currently. How much of this is due to actual control […]
The Zika epidemic in Singapore appears to be progressing towards endemicity. As of yesterday, there are 387 confirmed cases, with 9 clusters. Among the confirmed cases are 16 pregnant women, and the Ministry of Health has announced plans to set up a national surveillance programme to monitor the development of babies born to these and […]
Today’s addition of 16 new cases of Zika infection – the smallest number added for the past week – brings the total number of confirmed Zika infections to 258. No links to prior clusters were found in 4 cases. It is too soon to know whether this drop in cases reported represents a blip or if […]
The Ministry of Health Singapore (MOH) released a joint statement last night that included a short statement about the sequencing results of the viruses obtained from two patients from Sim’s Drive. What was of interest was the claim that “the (local) virus belongs to the Asian lineage and likely evolved from the strain that was […]
MIPHIDIC 