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Jerry Hansin 31 May 2008 Singapore News | 3 Comments

Singapore more prepared for infectious disease outbreak
By Hasnita A Majid, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 31 May 2008 1906 hrs

SINGAPORE: Singapore was declared SARS-free five years ago. Learning from that episode, the country is now more prepared to face an infectious disease outbreak.

Dr Dessmon Tai was in charge of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Tan Tock Seng Hospital when SARS hit the nation in 2003. And he was one of the first few doctors who came into contact with the first patient who brought the virus here.

Fortunately, Dr Tai was spared from being infected with SARS as he was expecting the virus to be the bird flu virus and had donned personal protective gear when dealing with the patient.

However, some of his colleagues were not so lucky – a number of them were infected and a few died. The public also shunned healthcare workers from the hospital.

Learning from that episode, work processes at Tan Tock Seng Hospital have improved and every healthcare worker is now required to be well-versed in personal protective measures before they are posted to the ICU.

“At the ICU level, we have divided our ICU into two complexes. In other words, if an epidemic were to strike us, we’ll use one complex to admit all the infectious patients and another ICU at another level will be used to treat the non-infectious patients.

“We also have another ICU built in CDC 2 (Communicable Diseases Centre) in case our ICU is overwhelmed. Because of the SARS outbreak, we have an extra 18-bedded ICU in CDC 2,” Dr Tai said.

SARS also taught Singapore to develop plans to combat other infectious diseases and to maintain a robust surveillance. Drills are conducted often to ensure that everything is in order.

Dr Lyn James, director of Communicable Diseases Division, Ministry of Health, said: “This way, we can keep the system in place, ensure that there is always good coordination between agencies, and that we are always prepared. By these exercises, we are able to identify gaps and put in measures to strengthen our plans.”

With the threat of a pandemic flu, these measures will no doubt come in handy.

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