PM Lee: Mers can and will come to Singapore
It would be a matter of time before the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) hits Singapore, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday (June 11).
He told the media this after visiting the Communicable Diseases Centre at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) to see how prepared Singapore was in the event of a Mers outbreak here.
TTSH is designated by the Health Ministry to be the hospital for Mers patients.
Said the PM: "We must assume that it can come and will come because we are so interconnected. Our neighbours have had cases... So for us it's a matter of time.
"And when it happens, I wanted to be quite sure that our medical facilities, our medical staff, the hospitals, the whole team are ready.
"They know how to deal with it, they don't fumble, and we can contain it and put a stop to the disease in Singapore as quickly as we can."
First identified in humans in 2012, Mers is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak.
It is transmitted through droplets from an infected person coughing or sneezing.
There is no cure or vaccine.
Read the full report in our print edition on June 12.
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