Singapore tests 200,000 'higher risk' individuals every two weeks for Covid-19: Gan Kim Yong

OVER 200,000 individuals who are deemed to have higher risk of exposure to Covid-19 are tested every two weeks for the novel coronavirus as part of Singapore's surveillance testing, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Friday.

This includes migrant workers who live in dormitories, workers who returned to work in the construction, marine and process sectors and workers supporting Singapore's frontline Covid-19 operations, Mr Gan said in a written reply to parliamentary questions on Covid-19 testing filed by Aljunied GRC MPs Gerald Giam and Leon Perera.

In the last two-week cycle, about 200 such individuals tested positive for Covid-19, he said, with the majority of these cases "likely to be past infections".

At the same time, about 76 per cent of patients aged 13 and older diagnosed with acute respiratory infection at polyclinics and Public Health Preparedness Clinics were tested between July 1 and Aug 16, the minister said.

"Of these, a small percentage - 0.03 per cent - tested positive, indicating that the community prevalence of Covid-19 is low," Mr Gan said.

As Singapore reopens its economy, the Ministry of Health (MOH) will be expanding testing to more community groups. For a start, this includes taxi and private hire car drivers, food delivery personnel, key vendors servicing worker dormitories and stallholders at selected hawker centres, markets and coffeeshops, he said.

"While there has been no local evidence that these community groups are of higher risks of getting infected, MOH will be offering tests to them as part of our expanded testing and surveillance efforts given the nature of their working environment, such as the high frequency of interactions with members of public," he said.

"These one-time testing operations will help to provide a better picture of population prevalence."

He added at that agencies and private providers supporting the testing operations are working to turn around the test results as soon as possible. The current mean lead time between the swab test and results are made available is 30 hours.

Mr Gan said the majority of linked cases are detected through active case finding around confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, MOH also conducts "special operations" to test selected groups of individuals where there is a higher risk of transmission of Covid-19, he said. This includes testing of identified households and their visitors at Block 111 Tampines Street 11 and the testing of bus drivers and staff working in public bus depots and interchanges.

"While the individuals tested were not close contacts of the confirmed cases, targeted deployment of such special testing operations allows earlier detection of any underlying cases among the group even if they are asymptomatic," he said.

In answer to questions from West Coast GRC MP Ang Wei Neng and Bukit Batok MP Murali Pillai on the ministry's vaccine plans, Mr Gan said: "Our vaccination approach aims to protect individuals who are more vulnerable or at higher risk from the disease, as well as those who may be more likely exposed to infection, while progressively expanding the coverage of vaccination to our population."

He added that the vaccination strategy and schedule would depend on several factors including the suitability of different vaccines for different population subgroups and the quantity of vaccines available at any point in time.

The strategy will continue to be adapted as more information from vaccine candidates becomes available, he said.

He noted that Singapore is actively engaged in international discussions to accelerate development and promote fair and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, beyond discussion with multiple pharmaceutical companies developing the vaccines.

In particular, Singapore has been working closely with the World Health Organisation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and like-minded countries to establish a multilateral collaboration called the Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access (Covax) Facility. This will will enable countries to pool risk and resources to gain access to a portfolio of vaccines from different vaccine developers, he said.

"Ensuring equitable access to vaccines will help to better contain and eradicate the Covid-19 pandemic, not just in Singapore but also globally," he said.

At the same time, the government is supporting local efforts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, he added.

This includes Duke-NUS Medical School's collaboration with US biotechnology firm Arcturus Therapeutics to develop an mRNA vaccine. Mr Gan said the first phase of human clinical trials for this vaccine candidate started in early August at the SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit.