SINGAPORE: A new agency to detect, prevent and control infectious diseases in Singapore will be set up on Apr 1, with Professor Vernon Lee taking charge of it as its chief executive.
The Communicable Diseases Agency (CDA) will be a statutory board under the Ministry of Health (MOH) and will consolidate public health functions previously distributed under MOH headquarters, the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) and the Health Promotion Board under one agency.
In a press release on Thursday (Feb 13), MOH said that CDA will have five key areas of focus: “Prevent”, “prepare”, “detect”, “respond” and “enable”.
The new agency 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”, said MOH.
Prof Lee will begin his tenure as chief executive officer of CDA on Apr 1, and will relinquish his current role as executive director of NCID on the same day.
He has over two decades of experience in public health policy and infectious diseases management, having contributed to Singapore’s response to the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, the 2009 influenza pandemic, the 2016 Zika outbreak and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
He supported the multi-ministry task force and various government agencies tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in various ways, such as developing contact tracing and quarantine systems, as well as community and vaccination-differentiated safe management measures.
He also set up the Biodefence Centre with the Singapore Armed Forces, formulating preparedness and response plans to protect servicemen and women from infectious disease threats.
On the global front, Prof Lee was seconded twice to the World Health Organization, once to its Indonesia office from 2007 to 2008 and later to its headquarters in Geneva from 2010 to 2012, to work on disease preparedness and response initiatives.
