\n<\/p>\n
Should regional efforts stall during an emergency, Singapore could make a “focused contribution” together with its partners, Mr Ong said.<\/p>\n
He outlined several areas, one being a vigilant global surveillance system that detects dangerous pathogens early, which rests on platforms where scientists and governments are willing to share data willingly and quickly.<\/p>\n
Singapore already works closely with GISAID, a leading international repository of genomic data for SARS-CoV-2, mpox and influenza viruses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n Mr Ong highlighted how Singapore\u2019s National Public Health Laboratory, in late July, detected a recombinant form of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, through routine genomic surveillance.<\/p>\n At the time of assessment, it was the only such sequence detected in Singapore, with no closely matching sequence identified in GISAID\u2019s database.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mr Ong noted that the patient had mild illness and recovered, and no further local cases were detected, while the sequence was submitted on the GISAID platform for global analysis.<\/p>\n “A country that reports an unusual pathogen may worry … about reputational or economic consequences,” said the minister.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The answer is not to delay reporting, but to build international norms that recognise transparency as responsible conduct.”<\/p>\n Mr Ong also called for support for CEPI’s 100-day mission, noting that it has made significant progress towards developing safe, effective and accessible vaccines for initial authorisation and manufacturing at scale within 100 days of identifying a pandemic threat.<\/p>\n “The strategy is to do as much work as possible before the crisis, by building prototype vaccine libraries for representative viruses, validating adaptable platforms, and preparing laboratories, clinical-trial networks, manufacturers and regulators to move in concert.”<\/p>\n Singapore is aligning its vaccine development efforts under its Prepvax research initiative with CEPI’s mission, Mr Ong said. PrepVax is a national programme established by the Ministry of Health to organise vaccine development capabilities across Singapore’s public and private institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n Lastly, vaccines must be evaluated, approved and deployed quickly without compromising safety and quality.<\/p>\n Trust built in peacetime allows authorities to rely on one another\u2019s assessments, share workloads and reduce duplication, because during a crisis, regulators tend to operate with “urgency and incomplete information”, Mr Ong noted.<\/p>\n The nature of Disease X is likely be novel, deadly and fast-spreading, but the minister said mRNA could offer the greatest flexibility in development and time to market, which is why Singapore plans to support the mRNA influenza vaccine pilot initiative<\/p>\n “To prepare for Disease X, we must resist denial, stigma, unfairness and the temptation to retreat behind national borders when global co-operation is most needed,” he added.<\/p>\n “We need to cooperate with each other, place our confidence in science and put in place overlapping and complementary plans ahead of time.<\/p>\n “The next outbreak will not wait for us to smoothen every kink and settle every disagreement. Preparedness must therefore be built now – patiently, practically and together.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “FOCUSED CONTRIBUTION” Should regional efforts stall during an emergency, Singapore could make a “focused contribution” together with its partners, Mr Ong said. He outlined several…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--oyyL5jep--\/c_crop,h_1125,w_2000,x_0,y_2\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/09\/24\/ong_ye_kung.jpg?itok=Ncp33fCV","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6053,30557,23055,488,23056,22,1466,823,14679],"class_list":["post-87562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-flu","tag-mrna","tag-pandemic","tag-pilot","tag-preparedness","tag-singapore","tag-strengthen","tag-support","tag-vaccine","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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