Just received an e-mail from my company’s HR department that one of the staff was being issues a HQO cause she was diagnosed with H1N1 few days back.

Looking back few months ago when the H1N1 started in Mexico, over here in Asia, there were none or few cases of H1N1 cases and in most cases the virus was contained and not spread out to the community.

However, H1N1 flu started spreading out fast and quick in the community during early June when more cases are diagnosed here in Singapore. During the initial stage most of the diagnosed cases are from tourist and citizens who returned from Australia.

And what causes the spread of H1N1 in Australia? A bunch of passengers who left a cruise ship to catch their flight or just to get on with their daily life after their cruise ship bring them to a tour of the South Pacific and docked at Sydney.

This started the spread of H1N1 in the Australian community and those unlucky Singaporean who were in Australia that time were also infected with the virus. Some return to Singapore with the symptom and were quarantine immediately, some lucky one were allow to continue on with normal life with the virus in their body but without the carrier showing any symptom until much later.

Within weeks Singapore started to have community spread of H1N1 virus and WHO also declared H1N1 a pandemic. And in the press, Melbourne was labelled as the H1N1 capital. However WHO says it’s up each individual country health ministry to determine the alert level.

In Singapore, the alert level remains yellow indirectly due to the Asian Youth Game which is a scoring point for the sport minister and for the sake of the name, Singapore. It was important this event to be held without disruption as 2010 is the year when Singapore is to host it first Youth Olympic.

As of latest update I have known, 53% of the flu cases have been diagnosed as confirmed H1N1 cases.

So if you are having flu, fever, sore throat and cough. Please see a doctor and get yourself quarantine at home for at least 2 to 3 days.

Share on Facebook

Thought that being a good citizen by wearing a face mask to the clinic to consult a doctor for my fever, flu and sore throat. But on the way all those uncles and aunties just keep staring and some gave me funny look when they saw me wearing a facial mask walking around in the mall. Can hear some giving negative comments in the most uncouth language in this country, Hokkien.

Don’t these bumholes read or heard in the news media that currently 5 out of 10 cases of fever are H1N1 cases?

Share on Facebook

The hero I’m talking about i n this post is not about someone who saved someone. But someone who spread dieseases.

I was reading The Straits Times online and came across a news article about this fellow who took the MRT to consult his GP after self quarantine at a hotel and his sister’s home. Isn’t that great that there might be a chance for the community wide outbreak of H1N1 in Singapore?

Here’s the news article from http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_386815.html.

“SINGAPORE’S 12th confirmed H1N1 flu patient travelled on the MRT to see a general practitioner on Wednesday morning.

He was accompanied by a family member and travelled to the clinic from his sister’s home, where he had been staying since checking out of a hotel, according to a Ministry of Health update issued on Friday night.The 18-year-old Singaporean had returned late on Monday on Emirates Flight EK405 from Melbourne. Although he developed symptoms on May 30, he passed thermal scanners at Changi Airport because he did not have a fever then.

He was met by a friend at the airport who drove him to a hotel for an overnight stay as he wanted to isolate himself from his family.

On Tuesday, he took a taxi to the GP clinic and then went back to the hotel. He checked out and took another taxi to his sister’s place where he stayed for the whole day.

The following day, he took the MRT to the same clinic in the morning, returning to his sister’s house afterwards.

He stayed there until Thursday when a 993 ambulance was called to send him to Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Emergency Department.

Later on Thursday, laboratory results confirmed his H1N1 infection and he was admitted to the Communicable Disease Centre.

On Friday, Singapore confirmed its 13th and 14th cases of H1N1 flu, a 23-year-old Singaporean man returning from Melbourne and a 22-year-old flight attendant with Singapore Airlines, the first cabin member to come down with the virus.”

Aren’t he smart to self quarantine himself in the hotel room and his sister’s home but stupid to take the MRT to consult the GP? What a hero!

Share on Facebook

The long awaited H1N1 influenza has finally reached our shore

From Straits Times

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_382278.html 

“SINGAPORE has reported its first patient infected with the new A(H1N1) flu strain.

The patient, a 22-year-old Singaporean woman, had been in New York from May 14 to 24, and arrived here on Tuesday morning.

While seated in row 55 on Singapore Airlines flight SQ25, she began to develop a cough, but she passed the thermal scanner at the airport later without being stopped, because she did not have a fever at the time.Later that morning, she went to a general practitioner who decided to send her to Tan Tock Seng Hospital via the special ambulance service 993 meant for suspected Influenza A (H1N1) cases.

Laboratory test confirmed her infection at midnight on Tuesday.

The patient is being treated at the TTH Communicable Disease Centre and is in stable condition.

The Health Ministry said the patient has been vigilant in monitoring her condition and had sought immediate medical attention once she realised she was unwell.

“Her attending GP, through his quick response in activating the 993 ambulance for the patient, had also helped to minimise the spread of infection from this case,” said a ministry statement.

The Health Ministry has begun contact tracing of those who have been in close contact with the patient.

They will be quarantined and given antivirals to prevent them from developing the disease.

The ministry asked passengers who had been seated in rows 52 to 58 on the same flight to call its hotline on 1800-333 9999, so that its officers can check on their health condition.

The Ministry has reminded all medical practitioners and healthcare institutions to continue to be vigilant to suspect cases.

Temperature screening for passengers entering Singapore at all checkpoints – land, sea and air – will continue.

All passengers passing through or entering Singapore are given Health Alert Notices on board their flights, advising them to monitor their own health if they have been to affected areas and to seek medical attention immediately if they are not well.”

Hmm… will my company kick-in the planned pandemic disaster plan sincethe first case H1N1 has been reported here.

Share on Facebook

Finally managed to get my company’s VPN server up and running using SSL Explorer. SSL Explorer  is using a clientless SSL VPN access method to access to your company network, therefore there isn’t any need to install a VPN client software on the laptop of those road warriors or remote workers.

What the road warrior or remote worker need to do is to use his or her browser and access a secured SSL website, key in his or her username and password to access the company network.

The reason why I’m tasked to set up a VPN server for my company is that our current Netscreen Remote VPN has only 10 concurrent users license. So if there were to be a pandemic like the recent swine flu and staffs where to be ordered to stay at home they can easily connect back to company’s network via VPN. So here comes the problem, if more 10 staffs are trying to access to the company’s network via VPN, our current Netscreen Remote VPN appliance will not be able to accept that many connections.

But with SSL Explorer, I’m able to overcome this limitation as SSL Explorer can accept up to 500 concurrent connections. What’s more, SSL Explorer is free.

If you are interested in a copy of SSL Explorer, you can download it by clicking the link here.

Share on Facebook

I know it’s wrong to call the latest influenza, swine flu, as the flu virus is not directly from swine. It’s official terminology is H1N1 Influenza A. 

My company is good enough to issue every employee a digital thermometer, 2 face masks and a bottle of instant hand sanitizer to prevent us from bringing the flu to our workplace.

The free digital thermometer, 3 face masks and a bottle of Dettol instant hand sanitizer

Share on Facebook

With the recent A Influenza H1N1 and the not-long-ago SARS pandemic threatening the world’s economy and causing fatalities, have one ever thought of why these virus are mutating so fast?

First Possibility

With commercial farms wanting to get more yield from the animals and plants they produce, the farmers resort to help from bio-engineering/pharmaceutical companies to genetically modify the gene of their animals and plants.

When the genetic structure of the cell is modified to make the animals and plants more resistance to disease and to have better a growth and yield, are we taking the chance to genetically modify the protein structure of the virus in the process too? Is there a possibility that the virus that is hibernating in the farm animals mutating because the virus is not able to developed the animal it is hosting on due to it new defense system, thus the virus are exhale out of the animals and inhaled by another animal of a different species.

When the virus found a new host, the virus might modify it protein structure to infect the new host that has not been genetically modified to protect itself against the virus from another different species. Thus causing a new strain of virus to be indirectly created.

Second Possibility

Terrorists or even the recent Mexico warring drug cartels with bio-medical engineering background managed to modified the protein structure of various virus in some underground research laboratory to create a new strain of virus to infect mammals. But why create a new strain of virus instead of using nerve gas or dirty bomb tactic to destroy your foes?

Firstly, nerve gas only affect a specific populated area; secondly, dirty bomb might not be effective as there exist current technology to detect dirty bomb during transportation.

So creating a new strain of virus seems to be the most effective as it has the ability to infect millions of people who are not confined to a specific area, or region. But it’s worldwide as people now travel globally thus with the ability to spread a genetically modified virus to another part of the world/continent.

Third Possibility

With an outbreak of new strain of virus, who will benefit the most? If your answer is pharmaceutical companies, I would say you are right. With thin profit margin and the current recession, those jabroni bosses of these pharmaceutical companies will definitely be hungry for more money to satisfy their hunger for that multi-million dollars mansion, limited edition cars, private jet, more bonus for themselves and of course a reputation for their company being the first to(create a new virus strain) manufacture a vaccine to fight the new virus strain.

With these vaccine in hand, the pharmaceutical companies can hold the world at ransom by selling the vaccine at a high price to governments around the world that is desperate to fight what the new strain of virus have done to it populations.

The above possibilities are just my point-of-view and not to be taken in a serious manner.

Share on Facebook

Yes! It’s officially orange! But the orange I’m writing here is not referring to the orange fruit.

Singapore’s Ministry of Health has escalate the swine flu alert to ORANGE! Here’s what the alert Orange mean:

Alert Orange
Virus becoming increasingly better adapted to humans but may not yet be fully transmissible , requiring close contact with an index case.

Larger clusters appear in one or two places outside Singapore but a pandemic has not yet been declared. A cluster of cases may also occur in Singapore but human-to-human spread remains localized.

Public health measures such as isolation and quarantine will be effective to break the chain of transmission. Strategy is to contain spread arising from any local cases and break the chain of transmission, while preserving essential services and resources. 

Action:
Implement “No visitor” rule at all hospitals.

Restrict all inter-hospital movement of patients or healthcare workers.

Set up Flu Clinics at the 18 Polyclinics for assessment and anti-viral treatment of flu-like patients.

Commence antiviral prophylaxis for identified essential services.

Encourage temperature taking at schools and all non-healthcare workplaces, markets, places of mass gatherings etc.

Carry out temperature screening for in-bound and outbound passengers at all air, sea and land border checkpoints.

Consider closing of schools and suspension of public gathering and events.

So if you are having flu symptom, please wear a facial mask when you are out in public places.

Share on Facebook

Finally managed to finished the Business Continuity Plan proposal and submit it to my boss.

With the escalation of the swine flu alert level to level 5 by the World Health Organization, it is a good time for every businesses to have a pandemic preparedness plan in case swine flu hit our shores.

Will blog later again, gonna install Ubuntu and OpenVPN as part of the Business Continuity Plan in case the alert level rise in Singapore so that employee can work from.

Share on Facebook

Guess what’s for my dinner tonight? It’s the tasty swine trotter cooked with black vinegar and ginger. SWINE RULEZ!!!

By the way, please take note that so far there has been no evidence found to indicate that swine flu is being spread by swines, hogs or pigs.

Swine trotter cooked with black vinegar and ginger

Share on Facebook

Singapore’s Ministry of Health has escalate it swine flu alert to Yellow,  for interpretation of the Alert Yellow, you can refer to MOH’s website at http://www.crisis.gov.sg/FLU/Alert+System.htm.

Alert Yellow

Inefficient human-to-human transmissions of flu caused by a novel virus, requiring close and sustained contact to an index case. Further spread can be prevented through public health measures to isolate cases and quarantine contacts.

Risk of import into Singapore elevated. Isolated imported cases may occur but there is no sustained transmission.

Strategy is to prevent further import of cases, and to ring fence and isolate cases to prevent spread. The focus will be to provide treatment of all cases, and antiviral prophylaxis to contacts including exposed healthcare workers.

Action:
Alert Green action apart, institute home quarantine for close contacts of cases.

Institute temperature screening and impose restriction on hospital and clinic visitors.

Restrict inter-hospital movement, except in emergencies.

Healthcare workers to take temperature twice a day.

Institute temperature screening for passengers arriving from affected countries at border control checkpoints.

Travellers from affected countries given Health Alert Notices (HANs) and advised to monitor their temperature daily for 1 incubation period. 

So with the alert yellow, there could be possibility of the virus still hitting our shore and those suspected of infection will have to be quarantined.

OK… now back to work to rush the IQC report and also the Business Continuity Plan proposal in case swine flu hit our shore.

Share on Facebook

Just managed to finish uploading all the photos taken at Toa Payoh to flickr. Now still feeling tired and headache, hope it’s not swine flu.

Argh!!! Still have the stupid IQC report to rush and finish it by Wednesday.

Share on Facebook

Having a bit of headache now and had runny nose in the morning. Is it swine flu? Or just plain tiredness as I did not get enough sleep last night? Or could it be the weird weather?

Share on Facebook

Was reading Bloomberg news just now and come across an article on swine flu that has kill 22 in Mexico so far.

Will this swine flu starts to be another worldwide pandemic just like what SARS did in 2003? With the current recession affecting tourism, will the outbreak of this swine flu (if it were to ever spread) definitely brings any country’s economy that depends on tourism to it knee.

Share on Facebook