News

On Monday, 9 March 2020, The Straits Times (ST) held a special edition of its Big Story panel discussion to focus on the COVID-19 outbreak and what lies ahead for Singapore. Moderated by ST senior health correspondent Ms Salma Khalik, the panel comprised four experts: Associate Professor Kenneth Mak, Director of Medical Services at the Ministry of Health, Singapore (MOH) Professor Leo Yee Sin, Executive Director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, and Adjunct Professor at SSHSPH Professor Tikki Pangestu, visiting professor at NUS Lee Kuan Yew School ofRead more

The World Health Organization wrote in a report: “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic. These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimise transmission chains in humans.” But WHO also stressed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Not all countries will be able to implement the same kind of lockdowns that China did to limit the spread of the virus. The approach would need to be tailored toRead more

The coronavirus continues to spread in countries beyond China, including Britain, Italy, Iran, South Korea and the United States. Despite raising the risk assessment to ‘very high at a global level’, the World Health Organization has expressed that containment of COVID-19 is still feasible and it does not yet constitute a pandemic. “I think they’re a little hesitant because the word pandemic sounds a little bit alarming, and so they don’t want to unnecessarily cause undue panic,” said Assistant Professor Clarence Tam. “But it is important for people to realiseRead more

Pre-packaged non-alcoholic drinks with high sugar or saturated fat content will be required to display a standardised nutrition label from end 2021 onwards. Called ‘Nutri-Grade’, the labels will enable consumers to compare different products by providing an at-a-glance summary of the nutritional quality of the drink, as well as the sugar level as a percentage of the total volume.The new measures are introduced as part of Singapore’s War on Diabetes. About 19,000 people here are diagnosed with the disease each year. Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said, “To win theRead more

Ros McDermott is a Geography Major from the University of Birmingham who is in Singapore for a year. In addition to taking up public health modules for her exchange programme, she is also doing an internship with the School’s Public Health Translational Team (PHTT). Today we talk to her to find out more about what she has learned here so far.

HealthServe is a local non-governmental organisation that offers medical care, counselling, social assistance and other support to migrant workers in the community. At HealthServe’s clinics in Geylang, Mandai and Jurong, migrant workers are able to access medical care for only S$8. Since 2013, Associate Professor Jeremy Lim has been a volunteer at HealthServe. He started as a regular volunteer general practitioner for a few years before transitioning to the administrative side as chair of the medical services committee. With the announcement of DORSCON Orange, the directive was that doctors workingRead more

A little over two months since the coronavirus emerged, more than 92,000 people have been infected and over 3,000 have succumbed to it. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently raised the global risk assessment level to ‘very high’, but many have been questioning why it has yet to declare COVID-19 a pandemic. By definition, a pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease, with increasing and sustained transmission in the general population. For now, there is comparatively lesser infected cases and slower spread outside of China, South Korea, ItalyRead more

Sun exposure increases risk of skin cancer, and various demographic factors influence sun safety behaviour.. In Singapore, although the local population spends less time under the sun as compared to Western populations, sun safety habits are not widely practised. Men, young adults, dark-skinned individuals and those with lower education levels are most vulnerable to poor sun safety habits and prolonged sun exposure. This was identified in the first local survey to study sun safety behaviour among Singaporeans. The study was conducted by Assistant Professor Seow Wei Jie, and Dr YewRead more

While Singapore has managed to slow the spread of the disease, the virus continues to spread rapidly around the world. “Singapore’s approach of actively looking for new cases and quarantining close contacts has been effective in ring-fencing clusters of infection so far, and we have not seen evidence of community spread… However, it is premature to say that the worst is over,” said Professor Tan Chorh Chuan, Chief Health Scientist at the Ministry of Health. “Given the rate at which new cases are being reported around the world, there isRead more

Drawing on lessons learnt from SARS in 2003, Singapore confronted the COVID-19 outbreak with a cautious step-by-step approach. Since the virus spreads through contact with respiratory droplets (and there is currently no evidence of airborne transmission), the Ministry of Health (MOH) has discouraged the public from hoarding and wearing masks when they are not sick. Maintaining proper hand hygiene and avoiding touching the face are more effective to reduce chance of infection. On that note, Associate Professor Jeremy Lim, partner at Ogilvy Wymann and Co-Director of Global Health at SSHSPH,Read more

The Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health often hosts interns and elective students from Singapore and internationally. These placements offer a great opportunity to understand more about public health and contribute to some of our research and translational efforts. These students often stay in contact throughout their careers and become part of the School’s extended family, or indeed, faculty. This week we talk to Tan Hao Yi who for the last four weeks has been working with our Public Health Translational Team. With his medical background, positive can-do attitude andRead more

Singapore’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak has been praised by Dr Tedros Adhanom, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, as well as Dr Marc Lipsitch, Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. But can we keep it up if the outbreak gets worse? Based on studies of past outbreaks, Associate Professor Alex Cook, Vice Dean (Research) and Domain Leader (Biostatistics and Modelling), and Assistant Professor Hannah Clapham outline three possible scenarios on how the outbreak and its control may affect our lives in the months ahead. ReadRead more