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Threat fr Zika Virus - 1st case in SG


Picnic06-Biante15
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This is totally different from the Hepatitis case.

 

Seriously, if u are blaming them for a coverup, like what some people on FB are saying.

Even without zika, there are many microcephaly cases here in singapore.

 

 

 

Construction sites are prime breeding grounds for mosquito mah.

What's so surprising?

 

His stats removed all the construction workers from the equation already.

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Does all these gender bias argument really matter when the focus should be eradication of the vectors....

 

Construction sites have always been the hotbed for mosquito breeding. The NEA should have the legislative power similar to MOM in issuing a stop work order for the construction project if their site has been spot checked to have mosquito breeding.

 

Only then you will see those construction companies pulling up their socks.

 

 

 

 

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living in that area, the NEA had already sent guys to fog that area yesterday afternoon, and they are going around checking individuals home and teaching the older generations on how to prevent mosquito breedings....

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Maybe this will accelerate the program to release GM aedes aegypti that will render the offspring infertile.

 

It's already been successful in Tekong. But whole of singapore is quite a lot bigger.

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Twincharged

So you don't actually find it fishy that the ratio of males to females affected is 40 to 1?

 

What is the stats of that happening, or even 5 to 1 ratio, crunching all the foreign workers to 1?

 

The mosquitoes are heterosexual in stinging preference?

 

Actually is 4-1 if you consider all those at the construction site as 1. Cuz 1 of the Singaporean male works at the construction site also.

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Yes I recognise that construction work is a risk factor. That's why we say that even 4 or 5 to 1 ratio is too high.

 

Bearing in mind that previous studies did not establish gender bias for dengue.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938976/

 

"We were able to discount other previously speculated factors such as gender, whether one primarily works indoors or outdoors, dwelling floor in a building and the use of public transportation as having no effect on one’s risk of getting dengue."

 

Whereas if you look at the raw data, for example here: https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/dam/moh_web/Publications/Reports/2010/2/Vector-borne%202009.pdf (see table 2.6), you find that in the age groups I mentioned, there is a very clear bias toward males.

 

In older people, there is almost no male:female bias. Overall, the bias is much reduced when you take the combined data.

 

The thing about dengue is that it's a "mature" endemic disease in Singapore. It's had time to permeate through different demographic strata, so you'll find this sort of even-ing out effect. In contrast, chikungunya is a newer entrant to our happy island family. So you see a sharper male:female bias (table 2.1). Even there, you see the effect peters out somewhat in the older group, just like in dengue.

 

Zika is brand new to Singapore. Think of the people getting it now as "forward troops". If the most likely "outdoors/economic activity" hypothesis is indeed correct, what we're seeing is exactly the pattern we'd expect to see. In contrast, if Aedes preferentially bit males to females, you'd see the asymmetry across diseases and across age ranges - we're not seeing that.

 

With regard to the study (I know the senior author quite well), there are always limitations in any such study. The definition of outdoors vs indoors is not made clear, which suggests a methodological flaw. If self-reporting was used to gauge this (rather than, for example, using a personal diary of a controlled format to log time spent indoors vs outdoors, with stringent definitions), then there is a large element of subjectivity. And keep in mind that studies only tell you what things reach *statistical significance*, which is also dependent on other factors.

 

By the way, I don't agree with the "crunching" you did to "shrink" the FWs to "one". In statistical analysis, stratification of data must be done rigorously, and even that admits a lot of bias and confounding.

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Does all these gender bias argument really matter when the focus should be eradication of the vectors....

 

Construction sites have always been the hotbed for mosquito breeding. The NEA should have the legislative power similar to MOM in issuing a stop work order for the construction project if their site has been spot checked to have mosquito breeding.

 

Only then you will see those construction companies pulling up their socks.

construction sites without mosquito is like pub dun sell beer [laugh]
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Does all these gender bias argument really matter when the focus should be eradication of the vectors....

 

Construction sites have always been the hotbed for mosquito breeding. The NEA should have the legislative power similar to MOM in issuing a stop work order for the construction project if their site has been spot checked to have mosquito breeding.

 

Only then you will see those construction companies pulling up their socks.

 

Don't think they dare to do such drastic action ... they've never been too harsh on construction and developer companies. After all, these guys are racing against time to build the required housing and infrastructure expansion works for the exploding population coming soon. All in the plan already, regardless of our misgivings.

 

You can see construction of flats - covering almost every possible open space - and road widening activities all over singapore these days. Working at breakneck pace, and even lasting into the night. Several years ago, I've never seen so many construction activities going on late into the evening. But now it's very common.

 

Bearing all this in mind, they won't go so hard on these companies and possibly delay their plans, or worse, increase costs.

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His stats removed all the construction workers from the equation already.

 

How can you just "remove" them? Especially if the FWs are forming a pool of carriers and the Singaporean males identified as being positive were foremen or senior site supervisors of the construction sites? I'm just speculating here, but this is one possible (and to my mind, likely, scenario). By simply ignoring the largest slice of the data pie, you're not able to see the wood for the trees.

 

"Ignoring" and selectively massaging data to recalculate ratios are strict "no-nos".

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Does all these gender bias argument really matter when the focus should be eradication of the vectors....

 

Construction sites have always been the hotbed for mosquito breeding. The NEA should have the legislative power similar to MOM in issuing a stop work order for the construction project if their site has been spot checked to have mosquito breeding.

 

Only then you will see those construction companies pulling up their socks.

 

I don't think it will happen. A construction site is changing day to day. And a lot of materials are being kept onsite for construction purposes.

Other than all the incidental puddles etc. I'm sure a lot of the structures under construction which are not covered up are just having stagnant pools of water.

 

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Can't open up your file. It took too long to load.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/health/zika-virus-sex-spread.html?_r=0

 

Read the table Zika and Sex.

 

The study based in Brazil indicates that females are more likely to be infected with Zika, although they admitted that it might be through sexual contact.

 

"Even after removing pregnant women from the data, women were 90% more likely than men their age to be infected."

 

Whereas if you look at the raw data, for example here: https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/dam/moh_web/Publications/Reports/2010/2/Vector-borne%202009.pdf (see table 2.6), you find that in the age groups I mentioned, there is a very clear bias toward males.

 

In older people, there is almost no male:female bias. Overall, the bias is much reduced when you take the combined data.

 

The thing about dengue is that it's a "mature" endemic disease in Singapore. It's had time to permeate through different demographic strata, so you'll find this sort of even-ing out effect. In contrast, chikungunya is a newer entrant to our happy island family. So you see a sharper male:female bias (table 2.1). Even there, you see the effect peters out somewhat in the older group, just like in dengue.

 

Zika is brand new to Singapore. Think of the people getting it now as "forward troops". If the most likely "outdoors/economic activity" hypothesis is indeed correct, what we're seeing is exactly the pattern we'd expect to see. In contrast, if Aedes preferentially bit males to females, you'd see the asymmetry across diseases and across age ranges - we're not seeing that.

 

With regard to the study (I know the senior author quite well), there are always limitations in any such study. The definition of outdoors vs indoors is not made clear, which suggests a methodological flaw. If self-reporting was used to gauge this (rather than, for example, using a personal diary of a controlled format to log time spent indoors vs outdoors, with stringent definitions), then there is a large element of subjectivity. And keep in mind that studies only tell you what things reach *statistical significance*, which is also dependent on other factors.

 

By the way, I don't agree with the "crunching" you did to "shrink" the FWs to "one". In statistical analysis, stratification of data must be done rigorously, and even that admits a lot of bias and confounding.

 

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I don't think it will happen. A construction site is changing day to day. And a lot of materials are being kept onsite for construction purposes.

Other than all the incidental puddles etc. I'm sure a lot of the structures under construction which are not covered up are just having stagnant pools of water.

 

All this having been said, I think an independent review of construction projects in Singapore needs to be undertaken. How many times have we had the (subjective, anecdotal) experience of the same stretch of road being torn apart seemingly just weeks apart?

 

This strikes me as being highly wasteful and disruptive to traffic flow. And there are other less obvious consequences, for example to health (chemical and noise pollution and even diseases like VBDs).

 

So if any zheng hu lang is out there reading this, please give the public an account of exactly how often construction projects are undertaken and whether there is any central oversight or planning to coordinate these to minimise disruption to others.

 

On a smaller scale, we also see neighbouring houses doing renovation out of sync - first one begins, takes months to end while everyone's nerves are frazzled - only to have another house getting started almost right on the heels of the first. [rolleyes] I wonder if anything can be done about that, too (BCA permits are required for major renovation to private houses, so this should be police-able too).

Edited by Turboflat4
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Yeah, agree with the implications to the building industry and economy.

 

Look at it this way.

 

A fall from height resulting in death of a worker will earn stop work order from MOM.

 

Mosquitoes breeding and spreading Dengue/Zika/Chigu........affecting hundreds in the neighbourhood...some even die from serious infection (very old/young with pre-existing problems) ....they do nothing except for a cursory fine? :o

 

Don't think they dare to do such drastic action ... they've never been too harsh on construction and developer companies. After all, these guys are racing against time to build the required housing and infrastructure expansion works for the exploding population coming soon. All in the plan already, regardless of our misgivings.

 

You can see construction of flats - covering almost every possible open space - and road widening activities all over singapore these days. Working at breakneck pace, and even lasting into the night. Several years ago, I've never seen so many construction activities going on late into the evening. But now it's very common.

 

Bearing all this in mind, they won't go so hard on these companies and possibly delay their plans, or worse, increase costs.

 

Edited by Vratenza
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Can't open up your file. It took too long to load.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/health/zika-virus-sex-spread.html?_r=0

 

Read the table Zika and Sex.

 

The study based in Brazil indicates that females are more likely to be infected with Zika, although they admitted that it might be through sexual contact.

 

"Even after removing pregnant women from the data, women were 90% more likely than men their age to be infected."

 

I can't speak for what's happening in Brazil, especially using what's reported in the lay press as my data source.

 

Zika has been identified to be highly transmissible by sex. But in Singapore, I would expect that mode to be less important than the mosquito vector route.

 

Anyway, the "infected" you pick up are only a subset of those you test in the first place. I know that in many of the places where the hysteria hit the hardest - and these were also places with limited economic and medical resources- the women were tested vastly more often than the men (because of the widely publicised link to microcephaly). And it can't just have been pregnant women, it was likely also women who were looking to get pregnant, were living together with pregnant women, etc. etc.

Edited by Turboflat4
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I also hope I am wrong about this.

 

My own experience with my friends and relatives is that females tend to be bitten more, but that could all be personal bias.

 

Hopefully, this is just a statistical blip and it is all contained...

 

 

I can't speak for what's happening in Brazil, especially using what's reported in the lay press as my data source.

 

Zika has been identified to be highly transmissible by sex. But in Singapore, I would expect that mode to be less important than the mosquito vector route.

 

Anyway, the "infected" you pick up are only a subset of those you test in the first place. I know that in many of the places where the hysteria hit the hardest - and these were also places with limited economic and medical resources- the women were tested vastly more often than the men (because of the widely publicised link to microcephaly). And it can't just have been pregnant women, it was likely also women who were looking to get pregnant, were living together with pregnant women, etc. etc.

 

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I can't speak for what's happening in Brazil, especially using what's reported in the lay press as my data source.

 

Zika has been identified to be highly transmissible by sex. But in Singapore, I would expect that mode to be less important than the mosquito vector route.

 

Anyway, the "infected" you pick up are only a subset of those you test in the first place. I know that in many of the places where the hysteria hit the hardest - and these were also places with limited economic and medical resources- the women were tested vastly more often than the men (because of the widely publicised link to microcephaly). And it can't just have been pregnant women, it was likely also women who were looking to get pregnant, were living together with pregnant women, etc. etc.

 

Zika is definitely under reported in males. 

It's only here in SG that they undergo mass testing to try and identify the cluster. Something we inherited from dengue hotspot identifying.

 

Even here in SG, among travellers to Brazil, only the women are concerned. The men bo chap  [laugh]

Edited by Lala81
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