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Controlling portion sizes served by food vendors could be an effective tactic in reducing over-consumption and tackling obesity, says Professor Chia Kee Seng, Dean of the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Singapore is seeing rising obesity rates, with one in nine Singapore residents aged between 18 and 69 considered obese in 2010, a figureRead more

A study conducted by NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine students in February 2015 revealed that 78% of patients who consulted their GPs were not aware that antibiotics do not work against viruses such as those which cause the common cold. More than two-thirds also mistakenly believed that antibiotics could cure coughs, sore throats

The World Antibiotic Awareness Week 2016, led by the World Health Organisation from 14 – 20 November, aims to increase the awareness of global antibiotic resistance and encourage best practices among the general public, health workers and policy makers to avoid the further emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance, which results when antibiotics lose

Following the Ministry of Health’s declaration on a “war on diabetes” earlier this year, a strategic framework encompassing the domains of primary prevention, early detection and disease management was developed. The proposed action plans and implications of this framework were discussed during the School’s Public Health Thought Leadership Dialogue Driving Singapore’s War on Diabetes on 14 November

Children getting myopia at a young age increases the risk of worsened vision later in life, a study by the Singapore Eye Research Institute has found. Parents should try their best to delay myopia in their children by making sure they spend time outdoors, says Prof Saw Seang Mei from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public

Several key public health challenges including Singapore’s ongoing “War on Diabetes” and the threat of infectious diseases such as dengue and Zika were highlighted at the 2nd Singapore International Public Health Conference and the 11th Singapore Public Health and Occupational Medicine Conference. Close to 600 international and local researchers, academics, healthcare professionals, policy-makers and industry

On 21 September 2016, the United Nations will convene a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a problem which occurs when drugs used against pathogens become ineffective. The spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a growing one, with infections and deaths from “superbugs” exceeding those of SARS, Zika or dengue, says Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme

Public distrust of vaccines can cause diseases like yellow fever and measles to spread quickly if people refuse vaccines, researchers say. The largest global survey on vaccine confidence surveyed nearly 66,000 people across 67 countries, and was led by researchers from the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, together with

A strategy which targets minimising and testing for infection in pregnant women, outpatient management of patients and controlling mosquito spread is key in tackling the ongoing Zika outbreak, say Associate Professors Alex Cook and Hsu Li Yang from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. In weighing the public health responses, the hospitalisation of those with symptoms may not

How did the Zika virus trigger a recent outbreak in Singapore? Infectious diseases experts say this could be a mystery, as existing tests are unreliable for infections more than two weeks old. “If a compatible mosquito bites someone who has the virus in his or her blood, the mosquito becomes infected. After about a week,