Infectious diseases, epidemiology, and social networks at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS
Our paper “Rapid Assessment Zika Virus Knowledge Among Clinical Specialists in Singapore: A Cross-sectional Survey” was published in PLOS Currents Outbreaks this week. This was a collaboration between KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and Singapore General Hospital. The first case of confirmed Zika virus disease in Singapore…
This is a longer version of a letter we published in The Lancet Global Health (Tam CC, Offeddu V. Preserving dignity and anonymity at scientific conferences. Lancet Global Health 2017;5(4):e398). You can access the published version here. Numerous guidelines exist to encourage the proper conduct and reporting of medical research. The Helsinki Declaration1, on which most…
This is a pre-submission version of our recent letter to the Lancet. The final published version can be accessed here. Following widespread criticism about inadequate action during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa(1), the global response is once again being tested by two re-emerging infectious disease threats in the form of Zika and yellow fever…
Last week saw the publication of an open letter to Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of WHO, calling for the postponement of the Olympic Games, due to take place in Rio de Janeiro in August. To date, the letter has been signed by 209 academics and public health professionals. The signatories base their position on…
Following the publication of CDC’s paper evaluating the evidence for a causal link between Zika virus and microcephaly this week, twitter was alight with pronouncements that this link has been definitively established, at least based on the CDC authors’ interpretation of Shepard’s criteria for teratogenicity and Bradford Hill’s causal considerations. That a causal link has…
We’ve been tracking WHO’s prominence on twitter as a source of information on Zika virus and microcephaly. After a couple of weeks of relatively lower prominence, WHO was back at the centre last week, this time being the major source of retweets to dispel rumours that have been making the rounds regarding the possibility of…
This post comes from Dr Neisha Sundaram. Neisha is a cultural epidemiologist and Research Fellow at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Her research focuses on use of mixed methods to study vaccine acceptance. This Flavivirus is a current infectious disease and media favourite, with a lot being said about Zika in the…
We previously discussed the central role that WHO has played in disseminating information on zika virus through social media following its declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on February 1st. It’s been interesting to follow the media coverage on the issue since then. The first thing to note is that there…
We have been asking colleagues to write posts on our blog giving different perspectives on the zika virus response. This post comes courtesy Dr Mishal Khan. Mishal is a Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and an Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. Her research focuses…
There has been much interest in and varying opinion towards WHO’s recent declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern related to the unexpected cluster of microcephaly and its suspected association with the explosive Zika virus epidemic in Latin America. But how does this play out in terms of WHO’s role as an authoritative agent…