Infectious diseases, epidemiology, and social networks at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS
November 12-18 marked World Antibiotic Awareness Week, an iniative started four years ago by the World Health Organization to increase awareness of the growing problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. For the past three years we have held public engagement events at local libraries to teach children and adults about antibiotic resistance, and what the…
During my last tutorial, three out of thirteen students were asleep, but that’s ok. Because if we were to question our abilities as teachers every time a student falls asleep, we would be giving up before even trying. Here at SLING, we teach epidemiology and public health, and we are committed to delivering high-quality education…
Dr. Nicola J Williams is professor of Zoonotic Bacterial Disease at the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool, UK. Her research interests include antibiotic resistance, transmission of food-borne pathogens, and the molecular epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus bacteria in wildlife, livestock and companion animals. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant…
Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian is the current director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme at the National University Hospital in Singapore. She works as an Infectious Disease Consultant and Hospital Epidemiologist and is also an Assistant Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University Singapore. She has published multiple papers and book chapters in the area…
Dr Mishal Khan is Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research focuses on gender inequalities in health, health systems strengthening and tuberculosis control. In this blog post, she tells us about some of the less familiar places to get antibiotics around…
I recently attended a seminar at Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. It featured Professor John Ioannidis from Stanford University who gave a fascinating talk on common pitfalls in the conduct and interpretation of meta-analyses, and some of the cutting-edge developments in the field. I thought I would share some highlights here. Systematic review,…
It’s been almost a year since I abandoned my not so well established career as a molecular biologist to board the public health ship, so it’s finally time for me to wrap up the identity crisis. I know what I was before (a lab rat), but what am I now? Apparently I now belong to…
When we first decided to join the World Antibiotic Awareness Week (WAAW) launched by the WHO, there were exactly 3 weeks left to prepare. On our list were a journal club, a movie screening, a seminar session, an online quiz, posters, badges, blog posts, three bug costumes, one pill costume, helium balloons and a booth.…
When we think of the discovery of antibiotics, we commonly think of Sir Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin in 1928. The first time it was used for medical treatment was years later in the 1940s, after which it changed the face of modern medicine. The period between then 1940s and 1960s is often referred to…