Singapore to set up national SWAT team for disease outbreaks

Singapore is considering setting up a national-level "SWAT team" to detect possible recurrence of disease outbreaks, local media cited Minister of State for Health Chee Hong Tat on Monday.

The "SWAT team" will be composed of experts that can be mobilized at short notice for outbreaks, from both public and private institutions in Singapore, Chee said.

This is the latest updates after a task force was set up earlier in December to strengthen infection control at all hospitals after eight have died and 25 others infected in the the mass infection of Hepatitis C at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) in October.

The task force, as Chee has explained, agreed that it was not a perfect solution to simply add more rules and procedures to avoid such incidents, because most healthcare institutions already have good infection control protocols, and doing so can only add more workload and extra working time to the staff.

"We need to balance this with the need to keep SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) simple and helping out medical professionals to focus on their core responsibilities and to comply with existing infection control protocols," he said.

Chee also said that the taskforce will also make better use of data analytics and IT systems to detect potential outbreaks in the future. Enditem