Premium
Strategies adopted and lessons learnt during the severe acute respiratory syndrome crisis in Singapore
Author(s) -
Sars Investigation Team from Dmeri,
Sgh
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
reviews in medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.06
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1099-1654
pISSN - 1052-9276
DOI - 10.1002/rmv.458
Subject(s) - outbreak , preparedness , contact tracing , medicine , quarantine , military personnel , public health , covid-19 , medical emergency , environmental health , political science , disease , virology , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law
In Singapore, the military was actively involved in the containment of the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) last year. The outbreak started in February 2003 with three Singapore travellers to Hong Kong. At that time, nothing was known about the aetiological agent of the atypical pneumonia that was termed SARS. Unfortunately one of the travellers was a super‐spreader, defined as a person with high efficiency for virus transmission, and was responsible for the expansion of the national outbreak. Not only was the Singapore military involved in contact tracing of personnel and enforcement of home quarantine, military‐affiliated research institutes were also involved in providing diagnostic support. This review reconstructs the events that took place during the SARS outbreak, focusing on the special support arising from complementing the military‐affiliated laboratory with the public health laboratory. A description of the diagnostic findings is provided in chronological order. The review ends with lessons Singapore learnt from the SARS crisis, stressing the importance of national preparedness for future outbreaks. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.