Ebook: Infectious Diseases and Singapore: Past, Present and Future

Singapore is a young nation at the crossroads of Asia and consistently faces the threat of infectious diseases. The infectious disease threats have changed with the times—it began with malaria, cholera and plague during the earliest days of the Straits Settlements; to vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio and smallpox; and now modern scourges including HIV, SARS, pandemic influenza, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten a return to the pre-antibiotic era.
Yet what is common is that the people and governments of Singapore have relentlessly worked together to overcome these diseases. Singapore has accomplished much in the arena of infectious diseases, but the lessons from our experiences and the personal stories from those who have worked to control infectious diseases are not well known.
The collected stories and records in this volume will remind us how far the nation has progressed, how we have contributed to global and regional health and how hard-won is the protection from infectious diseases that we take for granted today.