<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Temperature screening at border ends
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>With widespread local spread, it has become less useful, says MOH </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Jessica Jaganathan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><DIV class=story_text><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->TEMPERATURE screening at the border checkpoints here will cease today.
The thermal scanners in use at airports and ferry terminals are among the last measures left over from what the authorities called the 'containment phase' in the battle against the Influenza A (H1N1) virus.
The scanners went up about 2-1/2 months ago, when news emerged that a deadly new strain of swine flu had, by that time, killed more than 80 people in Mexico.
Little was known about the bug then, and the focus was on stopping it at Singapore's borders. Passengers arriving here with higher-than-normal temperatures were sidelined and sent for medical checks.
But yesterday, the Health Ministry (MOH) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that the virus had spread globally and was also in the community here, so temperature screening at the borders here was 'now less useful'.
With most other containment measures already having been dropped, hospitals and other medical facilities are the last bastion where 'containment phase' measures are still in place.
Singapore is now shifting from focusing on containing the virus to mitigating it. Resources will now be put into treating those seriously ill.
It is not clear what measures will remain when the nation moves fully into the 'mitigation' phase.
A Health Ministry spokesman told The Straits Times earlier that it will give fuller details of such measures in time. For now, it is monitoring the situation and the prevalence of H1N1 cases.
MOH's director of medical services K. Satku said in an earlier press conference that Singapore would move from the containment stage to the mitigation stage when the proportion of H1N1 cases in the sample of people with flu-like symptoms hits 15 per cent.
The proportion is now at 13 per cent.
Among the containment measures, the first to go was the quarantining of airline passengers seated near an individual who develops symptoms.
Travel advisories, home quarantine orders and contact tracing - except in hospital settings - have also been done away with.
So has the dedicated ambulance hotline for possible H1N1 cases, 993. It has been replaced with the regular 995 hotline.
And instead of being sent to hospitals directly, patients with flu-like symptoms are now asked to go to a polyclinic or any of the participating pandemic preparedness clinics; only those with severe complications like pneumonia are being treated at hospitals.
Even visitors to schools, offices and buildings and mass events now do not need their temperature or details taken, and schools have lifted their requirements for students or staff returning from flu-hit countries to take leave of absence.
Such public places are left to implement their own measures as they see fit.
The containment measures still in force in hospitals and places used by people belonging to high-risk groups, such as dialysis centres, include taking down details of visitors and doing temperature screening at their entrances.
Patients are restricted to two visitors, and health-care workers are masked and gloved in emergency and intensive care units.
[email protected]
<!-- end of for each --><!-- Current Ratings : start --><!-- Current Ratings : end --><!-- vbbintegration : start --><DIV class=vclear><!---vbbTime (Thread ID: 22108) - Start : Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:18:06:691---><SCRIPT language=javascript>function readCookieVbb() { var errorString = getURLParam("error"); user=getCookie("HTTP_user_id") luser="" if (user!=null) { luser=user.toLowerCase() if (luser == "anonymous" || luser == "anonymous|anonymous") { window.location= p_logoutLink; } } if(user != null && user !=0 && luser!=null && luser != "anonymous" && luser != "anonymous|anonymous") { document.writeln("<table border='0' width='100%' cellspacing='0' id='story_comments' style='display:none'>") document.writeln("<tr id='comments_body' style='display:none'><td colspan='2'>") document.writeln("<table border='0' width='100%' cellspacing='0'>") document.writeln(" <tr ><td class='heading'>Latest comments</td></tr>") document.writeln(" <tr><td id='messageDisplayRegion' width='100%'></td></tr>") document.writeln(" <tr><td align='right'>» Offensive? Unsuitable? Report comment
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</TD></TR><TR><TD style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" align=left>Posted by: madhouse at Sat Jul 11 05:59:34 SGT 2009
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</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>With widespread local spread, it has become less useful, says MOH </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Jessica Jaganathan
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><DIV class=story_text><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->TEMPERATURE screening at the border checkpoints here will cease today.
The thermal scanners in use at airports and ferry terminals are among the last measures left over from what the authorities called the 'containment phase' in the battle against the Influenza A (H1N1) virus.
The scanners went up about 2-1/2 months ago, when news emerged that a deadly new strain of swine flu had, by that time, killed more than 80 people in Mexico.
Little was known about the bug then, and the focus was on stopping it at Singapore's borders. Passengers arriving here with higher-than-normal temperatures were sidelined and sent for medical checks.
But yesterday, the Health Ministry (MOH) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that the virus had spread globally and was also in the community here, so temperature screening at the borders here was 'now less useful'.
With most other containment measures already having been dropped, hospitals and other medical facilities are the last bastion where 'containment phase' measures are still in place.
Singapore is now shifting from focusing on containing the virus to mitigating it. Resources will now be put into treating those seriously ill.
It is not clear what measures will remain when the nation moves fully into the 'mitigation' phase.
A Health Ministry spokesman told The Straits Times earlier that it will give fuller details of such measures in time. For now, it is monitoring the situation and the prevalence of H1N1 cases.
MOH's director of medical services K. Satku said in an earlier press conference that Singapore would move from the containment stage to the mitigation stage when the proportion of H1N1 cases in the sample of people with flu-like symptoms hits 15 per cent.
The proportion is now at 13 per cent.
Among the containment measures, the first to go was the quarantining of airline passengers seated near an individual who develops symptoms.
Travel advisories, home quarantine orders and contact tracing - except in hospital settings - have also been done away with.
So has the dedicated ambulance hotline for possible H1N1 cases, 993. It has been replaced with the regular 995 hotline.
And instead of being sent to hospitals directly, patients with flu-like symptoms are now asked to go to a polyclinic or any of the participating pandemic preparedness clinics; only those with severe complications like pneumonia are being treated at hospitals.
Even visitors to schools, offices and buildings and mass events now do not need their temperature or details taken, and schools have lifted their requirements for students or staff returning from flu-hit countries to take leave of absence.
Such public places are left to implement their own measures as they see fit.
The containment measures still in force in hospitals and places used by people belonging to high-risk groups, such as dialysis centres, include taking down details of visitors and doing temperature screening at their entrances.
Patients are restricted to two visitors, and health-care workers are masked and gloved in emergency and intensive care units.
[email protected]
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</TD></TR><TR><TD style="VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" align=left>Posted by: madhouse at Sat Jul 11 05:59:34 SGT 2009
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