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SINGAPORE – All public hospital emergency departments here are on “outbreak response mode” as Singapore raises its defences against a mysterious virus that is spreading in China.
“We cannot rule out the possibility that the new (Wuhan) virus will reach Singapore,” Professor Leo Yee Sin, executive director of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), told The Straits Times. The stakes are higher now that the virus has started spreading from human to human.
All patients at emergency departments are screened, and those with fever and travel history are isolated. All general practice doctors have also been told what to look out for and given a number to call if there are any suspected patients.
Any such call from a doctor will activate a special ambulance which will transport the suspected patient straight to the NCID. This is to nip the spread of the virus in the bud. The ambulance will then be properly cleaned before it is used again.
At the NCID, the patients will be placed in special negative-pressure isolation rooms, where air flows only into the rooms, not out of them.
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