Salma Khalik (The Straits Times), The Asia News Network, Singapore | Fri, 02/10/2012 6:03 AM
Dr Philip Koh examines Chua in his clinic in Tampines. Chua's flu is a typical case of how flu spreads - her two children came down with the flu before passing the virus on to her. (The Straits Times/Asia News Network)Singapore is in the grip of an outbreak of colds and diarrhoea, doctors say.
Significantly more patients than usual are turning up with these complaints.
Possible reasons include the trend for taking end-of-year holidays to northern countries, where it is currently flu season. The Chinese New Year dish yusheng also has the potential to make diners ill if left out for too long.
Polyclinics dealt with 17,557 cases of acute respiratory infections last week, up from 10,966 in the same period last year.
There were also 2,871 cases of diarrhoea, said the Ministry of Health's weekly infectious disease bulletin. Both illnesses have crossed the epidemic threshold, which means they can spread rapidly.
Dr Philip Koh, who works at the Healthway clinic in Tampines, said roughly three in four patients who turned up over the past two weeks had one of these problems.
Diarrhoea cases usually increase following Chinese New Year, he added. Dr Koh suspects that yusheng could lead to diners becoming ill if the raw fish is kept at room temperature for too long before being eaten.
When hands are not thoroughly washed, the germs spread easily to others. Dr Koh sees about 10 to 20 patients with diarrhoea a day. Between 50 and 60 people have been coming in with coughs, runny noses and fever, about a fifth more than normal, he added.
The doctor said he sometimes sees several colleagues or members of a family suffering from the same problem. 'I just saw a patient who said it's her third visit to my clinic this week,' he said. 'First she brought her older son, followed by the younger one, and now she herself is sick.'
The same thing happened to his clinic executive, Juliet Chua. Her 12-year-old daughter was the first to come down with a fever, and had to miss two days of school. Then she and her younger son also caught the bug.
Dr Koh Hau Tek, medical director of Parkway Shenton, suggested that the popularity of end-of-year travel to countries in the north could have contributed to the problem. His chain of clinics has dealt with 10 per cent more cases of colds and diarrhoea in recent weeks.
Dr Tan Tze Lee, who has a clinic in Chua Chu Kang, and Dr Philip Koh, who is also the chairman of the medical board at the Healthway chain, both reported an increase in the number of patients with flu-like symptoms this year, although they are usually not ill enough to warrant being hospitalized.
However, the clinics have been issuing more than the usual number of two-day MCs, which allow sick employees to stay at home.
These are generally given to patients who turn up with high fevers of 39 to 40 deg C. Dr Philip Koh said it is better to keep them at home as the virus spreads fastest when they have a fever. He thinks that the number of cases will taper off in about a week.
So far, polyclinics say last week's trend has been continuing for both colds and diarrhoea.
Dr Peter Chew, director of corporate development at the National Healthcare Group Polyclinics, said it dealt with about 2,200 cases of respiratory infection on Monday. These fell to 1,400 by Wednesday, the same pattern as last week.
