Institute of Tropical Disease Universitas Airlangga received a visit from SingHealth Singapore on Thursday, August 11, 2022. This visit is to invite participants from ITD to participate in the World One Health Congress, which will be held in Singapore on November 7 – 11, 2022, and invite participants to follow abstract submission. The deadline for abstract submission is August 15, 2022. In addition, SingHealth also offers collaboration between SingHealth-Duke NUS and ITD as a research institution. These collaborations can involve many aspects, including research and education. SingHealth also invited a team from ITD to visit Singapore as a return visit.

This activity was well received by the chairman of the Institute of Tropical Disease Universitas Airlangga, Prof. Maria Inge Lusida, dr. M.Kes., Ph.D., Sp.MK(K).

Vijaya Rao, as Director of the International Collaboration Office, explained that SingHealth – Duke NUS is a government organization that oversees four major hospitals in Singapore as well as 5 National Centers and several polyclinics and community hospitals. This organization is engaged in services, education in the form of Duke University NUS, and research, as illustrated by the three pillars of the SingHealth logo.

Learning from the Covid-19 pandemic, Singapore developed the “Asian Outbreak Preparedness Center,” which currently focuses on genomic detection and molecular epidemiology for rapid detection and ensuring preparedness for future outbreak threats. Therefore, cooperation with ITD is highly expected.

We can bring this initiative to life through a zoom meeting with researchers and Duke NUS deputy dean for international relations under SingHealth so that they can immediately establish cooperation and draft an MOU / MOA to formalize the form of collaboration between the two parties. The meeting closed with a brief visit to the state-of-the-art laboratory at ITD.