MOH explains list of affected H1N1 countries

29 Jun 2009, The Straits Times

Question

Why Indonesia, and not Malaysia, is on the travel advisory list

MR MONEY Kanagasabapathy and Ms Dhanaletchmi Pillay asked yesterday how we compiled the list of H1N1-affected countries for our travel advisory ('Why Indonesia?' and 'Why not Malay-sia?').

They were puzzled why Indonesia with only two reported cases was listed, but not Malaysia with about 70 reported cases.

Reply

Reply from MOH 

Countries differ in their influenza surveillance and reporting systems. Some are more aggressive in testing than others.

In Singapore, we have a robust influenza surveillance system and, so far, we have been able to gather the travel histories of all our imported cases.

Based on these travel histories, we listed the countries which have exported cases to Singapore. This is an evolving situation and the list will be updated as and when new data is obtained.

However, such travel advisories are useful when local transmission is still low. As the virus spreads more widely in the community and as the risk of being infected locally significantly exceeds the risk of infection from abroad, such a country listing and the associated travel advisory will become increasingly less useful.