Opening speech by Professor Vernon Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Communicable Diseases Agency

Could I invite everyone to close your eyes for a few seconds. Picture empty roads without cars or people. Picture empty trains. Picture quiet airports where aircraft sit grounded on tarmacs. Picture staying at home, unable to meet our families and friends, interacting only through a computer screen. Now, open your eyes.

This is not a dystopian future - this was our reality when COVID-19 struck. With pandemics occurring at a likelihood of about 2% per year, it is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ the next pandemic comes. While Singapore emerged well from COVID-19, it was not without impact. The question now is - Are we better prepared for the future?

Introduction

Mr Lawrence Wong, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance

Mr Ong Ye Kung, Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health

Mdm Rahayu Mahzam, Minister of State, Ministry of Digital Development and Information and Ministry of Health 

Professor Kenneth Mak, Chairman, Communicable Diseases Agency Board

Colleagues

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning and welcome to the launch of the Communicable Diseases Agency. We are honoured that Mr Lawrence Wong, Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, has joined us today to celebrate this important milestone with CDA, in the presence and company of our stakeholders, colleagues, and friends.

Singapore has weathered various infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics throughout the years. As a global hub, we are closely connected to other countries via trade and travel. This facilitates the rapid movement of goods and people, and supports our economy. However, there is also a risk of infectious diseases being rapidly imported and transmitted, with the potential to result in outbreaks.

Our experience with COVID-19 showed that rapid and flexible deployment of surge capacity, community-wide response measures, and collaboration across multiple sectors are essential. This also reminds us that we must strengthen our capabilities to manage current and future infectious disease threats. Many diseases are also endemic to Singapore, such as dengue, influenza, food-borne infections, HIV, and tuberculosis. These diseases also affect Singaporeans on a regular basis, and have to be well managed to reduce their impact on our daily lives. Today, we are launching CDA as Singapore’s dedicated public health agency to Prepare, Prevent, and Protect our nation from infectious diseases.

Prevention of Communicable Diseases

First, preventing infectious diseases is one of CDA’s key strategic objectives. We are strengthening our robust immunisation framework, enhancing infection prevention and control measures in healthcare institutions and the community, and implementing targeted public and professional education efforts to raise awareness.

Immunisation is key to prevent infections from occurring and to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. We have been steadily enhancing our national childhood and adult immunisation programmes. In September this year, working closely with the Ministry of Health, CDA incorporated both the Shingrix vaccine, which reduces the risk of shingles, and the PCV20 vaccine, which prevents pneumococcal disease, in the National Adult Immunisation Schedule.

CDA also works with experts and stakeholders to develop national infection prevention and control guidelines and standards to prevent the spread of diseases in healthcare institutions and among the population. While having guidelines is important, the key to driving actual behavioural change is good health education. Through continuing education for healthcare professionals, and targeted campaigns for the public, CDA will increase awareness of infectious diseases and how to manage them.  Examples including working with airlines and travel partners to increase awareness of Singapore’s yellow fever vaccination requirements for travellers to affected areas, and educating the public through travel advisories.  

One of the emerging global challenges to preventing the spread and control of infectious diseases is antimicrobial resistance or AMR, as it limits our available treatment options. CDA strives to prevent the emergence and spread of AMR both locally, through healthcare and community initiatives, and globally, through international collaborations. To steer our efforts, the second iteration of the National Strategic Action Plan on AMR will be released this afternoon. It will detail our strategy to drive more targeted action.

Preparedness Against Communicable Diseases

Second, enhancing our preparedness against infectious diseases. Even with the best of measures to prevent them, infectious diseases will still occur. Being prepared and ready is therefore important to rapidly and decisively respond to any threat. Learning from our experiences with past pandemics, CDA has established a forward-looking approach to pandemic preparedness by applying an evidence-based strategy and adopting emerging technologies.

In July this year, CDA introduced the new Singapore Pandemic Preparedness and Response Framework. This framework employs an agile and flexible approach to deal with both known and unknown disease threats in the future.

At the heart of our pandemic preparedness efforts lies CDA’s research strategy, designed to equip us with the right information and evidence to manage diseases. Our flagship Programme for Research in Epidemic Preparedness and Response, or PREPARE in short, strengthens Singapore’s research capabilities to prepare for, and respond to, both current and future threats.

An example of how CDA is developing future capabilities includes innovative human challenge studies, which allow researchers to gain precise scientific insights about infectious agents in less time, and in greater detail than traditional population-based studies. This has the potential to accelerate the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

Detection of Communicable Diseases

Next, to be able to respond to infectious diseases, we must be able to detect them, for we cannot protect ourselves against what we cannot see. Early detection of diseases is therefore critical to reduce impact by enabling prompt intervention. CDA is developing a comprehensive national surveillance strategy to strengthen early detection capabilities, to enhance collaboration, and to leverage new technologies, such as genomic and wastewater surveillance to better anticipate and respond to disease threats.

As healthcare professionals and laboratories serve as our eyes and ears for detection, CDA and MOH have also invested in a new IT platform to improve the disease notification process for our healthcare colleagues. CDA’s National Public Health Laboratory will also enhance its rapid detection capabilities by applying cutting-edge diagnostic technologies, advancing whole genome sequencing, and strengthening laboratory data integration systems.

To enhance the detection and risk assessment of threats before they reach our shores, CDA is also a key member of the World Health Organization’s Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources platform that facilitates early identification of global health threats through multi-national collaboration.

Responding to Communicable Diseases

Pandemics, although impactful, are not the only concern for Singapore. On a day-to-day basis, CDA responds to many endemic disease outbreaks to reduce illness and death – ranging from respiratory diseases, food-borne diseases, and mosquito-borne diseases.

We cannot work alone as infectious diseases affect many other sectors, and therefore require a coordinated, timely and evidence-based approach. CDA collaborates closely with whole-of-government stakeholders to develop policies and to implement appropriate public health and social measures. As part of the One Health approach, which spans the human, animal and environmental sectors, CDA partners with the National Environment Agency, National Parks Board, Singapore Food Agency and PUB on One Health surveillance. Singapore’s new One Health Master Plan, which will be released this afternoon, will guide our national strategy and activities.

Our collaborative approach also has to include all-of-society stakeholders as they are crucial in developing solutions, and implementing them in our community. These include private organisations, academic institutions and civil society. They work with us to help ensure that when threats emerge, we can draw on our collective national response to mount a swift public health action.

CDA’s International Partnerships

Infectious diseases recognise no boundaries, and Singapore, as a global trade and travel hub, remains at risk to diseases that occur across the world. Our global response is only as good as the weakest link, and it is important that we play our part to build global capacity and capabilities to deal with disease threats. International collaboration is important as it facilitates early access to information, strengthens overall preparedness, and enables sharing of best practices.

To guide our efforts, CDA has assembled an International Advisory Panel of world-renowned technical and policy experts to advise on key areas such as preparedness, analytics and vaccines.

Additionally, CDA is enhancing our cooperation with strategic partners. To date, we have signed Memorandums of Understanding with our counterparts in China, Germany, Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom to collaborate in areas such as surveillance, preparedness and capacity building. We will continue to explore additional partnerships.

CDA also engages actively in multilateral platforms such as the WHO, ASEAN, and the International Association of National Public Health Institutes to strengthen our networks. We will continue to partner with stakeholders locally and globally.

Concluding Remarks

As we celebrate CDA’s formation, we remember that the road we took to arrive at where we are today is paved with the lessons learnt from previous outbreaks, and the efforts of many of our predecessors. I would like to extend my gratitude to all our stakeholders, many of you who are here today, for your steadfast support, especially during CDA’s transition phase. We look forward to continuing our work with you in the future.

Pathogens may be invisible, but their ability to disrupt our lives show they are a constant and unrelenting force of nature. While we cannot entirely eliminate the possibility of future outbreaks, Singapore can rest assured that the men and women of CDA will also be a constant and unwavering force that will always do our utmost to protect Singapore from infectious diseases.

Thank you.