Singapore is fighting 2 diseases concurrently – dengue and COVID-19. Dengue is spread by the Andes mosquito and during this hot & wet season, the number of daily infections is more than 1,000. On the other hand, COVID-19 infections are in their low hundreds with community infections less than 10 a day. Most of the COVID-19 infections are in the dormitories where foreign workers are housed. They are quickly isolated and the infection rates are steadily decreasing.
However, dengue remains a challenge. When a person develops a fever, how do you quickly detect if it is due to dengue or Covid-19? This team from the Nanyang Technological University has developed a test kit that can provide the answer in 36 min. They are sorting out details so that the result can be delivered in under 30min. Let’s hope they get this to the market soon.
