EHI’s Surveillance and Epidemiology Programme supports the control of vector-borne diseases conducted by NEA’s Regional Offices and other land agencies, through surveillance and risk assessment.

EHI Diagnostics Unit

Licence No. 9700247/03/142 & 9700237/03/142

As a unit under the Environmental Health Institute (EHI) of the National Environment Agency (NEA), EHI Diagnostics, set-up in 2006, is the product of applied research and aims to provide non-profit inexpensive and accurate dengue and chikungunya diagnostic services to doctors, as well as being a gateway for disease surveillance in Singapore.

Our premises are fully licensed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) Singapore, and comply with its requirements as a medical diagnostic laboratory. EHI Diagnostics also participates in the External Quality Assurance (EQA) programme offered by the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) for Flavivirus and Alphavirus, and Malaria Proficiency testing conducted by MOH.

Standard Tests

• Dengue NS1 antigen/IgM/IgG
• Chikungunya RT-PCR
• Chikungunya IgM/IgG

Special Tests upon request

• Dengue RT-PCR
• Malaria PCR
• Neutralisation Assay - Dengue
• Neutralisation Assay - Chikungunya
• Neutralisation Assay - Yellow Fever
• Rickettsia IgM/IgG
• Yellow Fever RT-PCR
• Japanese encephalitis RT-PCR

For Standard Tests, results will be available within 2 working days upon receipt of samples.

For Special Tests, results will be available within 10 working days upon receipt of samples.

For any enquiries, please contact us at:

EHI Diagnostics, Environmental Health Institute, 11 Biopolis Way, #04-03/04 & #06-05/08, Helios Block, Singapore 138667. Tel: 6571-0470, Fax: 6777-2275

Surveillance

Since 2006, EHI has developed a dengue outbreak alert system based on the circulating dengue virus serotypes. The virus surveillance system, together with case surveillance (by MOH), vector surveillance (by NEA), and ecological surveillance, forms the four pillars of surveillance for vector-borne diseases in Singapore.

The virus surveillance system, based on a network of primary healthcare clinics, enabled detection of the chikungunya outbreaks in 2008 and 2013, and warning of the 2013-2014 dengue outbreak. In 2012, dengue virus surveillance was expanded into a cross-border surveillance system, when the UNITEDengue (UNited In Tackling Epidemic Dengue) network was set up with Malaysia and Sumatra, Indonesia.

Making Sense of the Data

Data generated from the multi-pronged surveillance system are analysed to understand the epidemiology of diseases, for temporal and spatial risk stratification, and for forecast of dengue incidence trend. Field studies are also conducted to determine risk factors for dengue and chikungunya. Such efforts enable operations to target areas with higher risks of disease transmission. Besides dengue and chikungunya viruses, pathogens under the programme’s watch include: Japanese encephalitis virus, West Nile virus and malaria parasites.

The team, comprising statisticians, geo-informaticians, bioinformatics specialists and field researchers, systematically leverages technology and mathematics to enhance our situation awareness for targeted interventions.