News

Celebrated in the last week of April (24–30 April), the World Health Organization (WHO) World Immunization Week aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease, and raise awareness of the importance of full immunisation throughout life. This year’s theme is Protected Together: Vaccines Work. The campaign celebrates Vaccine Heroes from around the world — from parents and community members to health workers and innovators — who help ensure we are all protected, at all ages, through the power of vaccines. Today we speakRead more

World #Malaria Day is commemorated every 25 April and recognises global efforts to control malaria. Malaria is caused by the Plasmodium parasite that is transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes and often leads to a flu-like illness with fever. If left untreated, it may develop severe life-threatening complications. In 2017, there were 219 million malaria cases and 435,000 malaria deaths worldwide. About 90 per cent of malaria cases are in the World Health Organization (WHO) African region, followed by WHO Southeast Asian region with five per cent of the cases, and WHO Eastern Mediterranean regionRead more

Ageing workers offer more experience, but also potentially more health problems. This new generation of older workers want to remain engaged and productive, yet they are the ones among whom we see higher chronic disease prevalence than previous generations. How do we manage these competing ideologies on ageing? Dr Jeff Hwang shares that companies should enable our older workers to remain in the workforce for as long as they desire. Doing so can counter the potential adverse economic impacts of an ageing society, which can slow economic growth and nationalRead more

Singapore adopts a harm restriction approach in its tobacco control, including limiting the places where one can smoke, taxation, advertising bans, and more recently, raising the minimum legal age for smoking and introducing standardised packaging of tobacco products. While these measures reduced smoking rates 50–60 years ago, the proportion of smokers has remained stagnant in recent years. “Perhaps the answer lies in harm reduction strategies, a well-accepted and established approach in public health,” said Professor Chia Kee Seng, Founding Dean. Harm reduction tools include nicotine patches, low-tar cigarettes, and more recently,Read more

Singapore aims to become one of the top countries with the safest and healthiest workplaces by 2028. Workplace fatal injury rates here have fallen from 4.9 per 100,000 in 2004 to 1.2 in 2017 and 2018, the lowest ever recorded. The target now is to reduce this further to below 1.0 per 100,000 workers by 2028, a safety level that has been achieved by only four OECD countries on a sustained basis (United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden). Earlier this month, the Ministry of Manpower announced its strategies forRead more

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the medical field is an emerging topic of interest, but it is already in practice in China where the use of AI on the medical frontline has reduced the burden on overworked doctors, in turn improving diagnostic efficiency and allowing for more time spent with patients. The technology is used mostly for medical imaging, such as in radiology departments to read CT scans or MRIs. The AI is fed with 10 years’ worth of data from diverse patient cases where it learns toRead more

#WorldHealthDay falls on 7 April and its main theme is Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the number one goal for the World Health Organization (WHO). Today we talk to Adjunct Associate Professor Jeremy Lim, who has an in-depth knowledge of the Singapore healthcare model and gives us his reflections.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the top 10 leading causes of death worldwide and remains an epidemic in most countries, including Singapore. To commemorate World TB Day on 24 March, Associate Professor Hsu Li Yang, Programme Leader (Infectious Diseases), and Dr Loh Kah Seng, Director of Chronicles Research & Education, shared about the current state of TB in Singapore, as well as what more can be done to eradicate the disease. Among residents and long-staying foreigners in Singapore, the rate of new TB cases had fallen from 307 per 100,000Read more

Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious bacterial infection which is spread through inhaling tiny droplets from the coughs or sneezes of an infected person. TB mainly affects the lungs, and is treated with antibiotics. Each year, World Tuberculosis Day falls on 24 March, the date in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. Technology has dramatically moved forward since the early identification of the bacterium by Dr Koch over 130 years ago. Assistant Professor Rick Ong‘s research group is working on a projectRead more

In 2016, 5.5 trillion cigarettes were consumed worldwide — enough for each man, woman and child to smoke two cigarettes every day. The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing more than 7 million people a year. With this important health issue in mind, the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health organised a Public Health Thought Leadership Dialogue (PHTLD) on the topic of tobacco control on 6 March 2019. Titled ‘Challenges to Current and Future Tobacco Control’, the 8th instalment ofRead more

8 March marks #InternationalWomensDay, and we couldn’t think of anyone more fitting than Associate Professor Wong Mee Lian to feature in the very first conversation of our series “Let’s Talk Public Health”. She has spent much of her career researching marginalised and vulnerable women in our society, and has been teaching health education and promotion to postgraduate and undergraduate students for the past 25 years.

Current and future cohorts of Secondary 1 female students can opt in to receive free Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to protect them against cervical cancer, announced Senior Minister of State for Health, Dr Amy Khor at her Committee of Supply debate speech on 6 March. About 70 women die of cervical cancer every year. From 2011 to 2015, there were about 200 new cases of cervical cancer annually. Dean, Professor Teo Yik Ying, shared two reasons for the low uptake of vaccination: low public awareness and cost. He added thatRead more