On April 1, Professor Vernon Lee will take over as the company’s CEO, creating a new firm to detect, stop, and control communicable illnesses in Singapore.
The Communicable Diseases Agency ( CDA ) will function as a statutory body under the Ministry of Health ( MOH), combining public health responsibilities that were previously held by the MOH headquarters, the National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID), and the Health Promotion Board.
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 authorities to immediately respond to disease , epidemics as one concerted public wellness work, and play a key role in safeguarding , Singapore from infectious disease dangers”, said MOH.
On April 1, Prof. Lee will resign from his present position as NCID’s executive producer.
He has over two decades of experience in public health policy and communicable diseases control, having contributed to Singapore’s reaction to the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic, the 2009 influenza pandemic, the 2016 Zika outbreak and, most just, the , COVID-19 crisis.
He backed the multi-ministry work force and a number of government initiatives aimed at tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, including developing contact tracking and confinement systems, as well as community and vaccination-differentiated safe management strategies.
He also established the Singapore Armed Forces ‘ Biodefence Centre, which develops preparedness and response strategies to shield service members from dangers from communicable diseases.
On the international before, Prof Lee was seconded half to the World Health Organization, again to its Indonesia business from 2007 to 2008 and afterward to its headquarters in Geneva from 2010 to 2012, to operate on disease preparedness and response initiatives.