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Aids on ‘must report’ list

By KONG SOOK CHIN

AIDS and the virus linked with it will be made "notifiable" in the next few days.

This will give the Health Ministry extensive powers to monitor the spread of the disease and tackle it more effectively.

Once Aids is included in the schedules of diseases listed in the Infectious Diseases Act, the ministry will be able, among other things, to:

• REQUIRE doctors by law to notify the ministry of any case of Aids or the presence of the Aids-related virus, HTLV-III, among their patients.

• QUARANTINE anyone suspected of having the disease.

• ORDER people to undergo blood tests or any examination to determine if they have Aids or the HTLV-III virus.

• QUESTION the public In order to trace the spread of the disease among the contacts of a carrier, and

• ORDER post-mortems in deaths due to Aids or suspected of having been caused by Aids.

The Act empowers the courts to fine doctors up to $2,000 if they fail to inform the ministry of Aids victims among their patients. Repeat offenders could be jailed six months and fined $5,000.

These powers show how seriously the authorities regard the disease of which little is known apart from the fact that no cure has so far been found for it. Studies have shown that about 70 per cent of those with Aids died within two years.

On the lookout

The decision to include Aids and the HTLV-III virus in such infamous company as the plague, yellow fever, malaria and viral hepatitis was disclosed by Dr Kwa Soon Bee, Permanent Secretary (Health) and Director of Medical Services, at a press conference on Monday.

A Health Ministry official told The Straits Times yesterday that doctors at Middle Road Hospital, where cases of sexually transmitted disease are referred to, had been on the lookout for signs of Aids since 1981 when the disease first hit the headlines.

On Monday, Dr Kwa disclosed that the ministry had zeroed in on male homosexual prostitutes, considered a high risk group, since March last year following the increase in reports of the incidence of Aids around the world.

The ministry also began to look into the possibility of blood tests to detect the presence of the HTLV-III virus. He said that the tests were only recently found reliable, which is why they were not used earlier.

The Elisa test for Aids is now available in Singapore. But blood samples with the virus will still he sent to the US for confirmation by the special Western Blot test not currently available here.

In January this year, an Advisory Committee on Aids was formed to formulate measures to tackle Aids here.

The committee is headed by Dr Ong Yong Wan, Medical Director of the Blood Transfusion Services and Head of the Haematology Department, Ministry of Health.

Dr Ong is now in Atlanta attending the world's first major conference on Aids. She is among 2,000 participants from 30 countries who registered for the three-day gathering.

The public should be able to get snap-shot answers about the disease in a week or two when a Health Ministry pamphlet, titled What You Should Know About Aids, is printed.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong, Minister of State (Health and Foreign Affairs), will visit the Tan Tock Seng Hospital on Friday. The visit was planned some time ago as part of a routine programme of visits for him.

References[]

Kong Sook Chin, "Aids on ‘must report’ list", The Straits Times, 17 April 1985[].

Acknowledgements[]

This article was archived by Roy Tan.

Archive of "Aids on ‘must report’ list", The Straits Times, 17 April 1985

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