FORMATION OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASES AGENCY AND APPOINTMENT OF PROFESSOR VERNON LEE AS CEO

The Ministry of Health (MOH) will establish a new Statutory Board, the Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA), on 1 April 2025.

2.               CDA will consolidate public health functions for the detection, prevention and control of infectious diseases, previously distributed under MOH headquarters, the Health Promotion Board, and National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID). It will focus on five key areas:

a)    Prevent: Prevent disease spread through public education, vaccination policies, and infection prevention and control measures.

b)    Prepare: Lead and coordinate public health preparedness efforts, working with various stakeholders to build sectoral readiness against infectious disease crises, and safeguard national interests such as vaccine and therapeutics development and access.

c)     Detect: Strengthen surveillance capabilities, including exploring the use of new modalities of surveillance to supplement traditional surveillance approaches, and explore data analytics and artificial intelligence to enhance our ability to make sense of large volumes of data.

d)    Respond: Investigate and respond to cases and outbreaks of infectious diseases, provide policy and scientific recommendations, and implement public health and social measures during a pandemic.

e)    Enable: To enable these functions, CDA will conduct and coordinate public health research, translating findings into actionable policies. Additionally, CDA will engage in international cooperation to stay abreast of global developments, share best practices, and enable swift responses to evolving disease situations worldwide.

3.               The formation of CDA will allow the government to quickly respond to disease outbreaks as one concerted public health effort, and play a pivotal role in safeguarding Singapore from infectious disease threats.

Appointment of Professor Vernon Lee as Chief Executive Officer of CDA

4.               Professor Vernon Lee will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of CDA from 1 April 2025. He will relinquish his current role as Executive Director of NCID on the same day.

5.               Professor Lee brings more than two decades of experience in public health policy and infectious diseases management to CDA. He has made significant contributions to Singapore's public health and global health initiatives. Professor Lee was involved in the response to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, 2009 influenza pandemic, Zika outbreak in 2016, and more recently, COVID-19 pandemic.

6.               On the international front, Professor Lee was seconded twice to the World Health Organization (WHO) – first to the WHO Indonesia Office from 2007 to 2008, and later to the WHO headquarters in Geneva from 2010 to 2012 where he worked on local, regional and global disease preparedness and response initiatives. Prior to that, he set up the Biodefence Centre with the Singapore Armed Forces, developing preparedness and response plans to protect servicemen and women from infectious disease threats.

7.               Professor Lee played a key role in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, where he supported the Multi-Ministry Taskforce and various government agencies. He developed case management protocols, contact tracing and quarantine systems, and community and vaccination-differentiated safe management measures. Professor Lee also worked with agencies on the safe management and re-opening of various sectors, helping Singapore to emerge from the crisis.

8.               Professor Lee holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Master of Public Health (MPH) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Johns Hopkins University, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Epidemiology and Population Health from the Australian National University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at NUS.

9.               The formation of CDA marks a significant step in Singapore's efforts to strengthen its capabilities in infectious disease management and public health preparedness. MOH extends a warm welcome to Professor Vernon Lee as the CEO of CDA.