Six healthcare and research companies have joined forces to form the Singapore Dengue Consortium to study the mosquito-borne disease. The six organizations - the Environmental Health Institute (a division of the National Environment Agency), the Genome Institute of Singapore, SingHealth Group, National Healthcare Group, the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases and Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory - inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The intention of the consortium is to explore ways to better understand and manage dengue infection and ultimately minimize the incidence of dengue in Singapore. Consortium members will be able to leverage on each other's strengths and capabilities both in terms of clinical management, laboratory diagnosis and viral research in order to:
· Accelerate the diagnosis of dengue
· Determine the serotype of dengue as well as its full genome sequence
· Understand what role the genes of dengue virus play in causing the different types of dengue diseases with different severity.

The Dengue Consortium will also provide a platform for the parties who welcome other parties to participate, share current work on dengue and brainstorm ideas for projects that may be of mutual interest. The diverse expertise of the parties ranging from basic research to surveillance and patient management would allow projects that would not be possible without the joint efforts of the parties. Separate agreements between the relevant parties will be drawn up to implement these projects.

Since 2002, many parts of the world are reporting increased dengue incidence. There was also a major worldwide outbreak of dengue in 1997/8. The exact reason for such an upsurge is not known although, it is possible that the warm temperatures could have affected the Aedes mosquito's life cycle and sped up virus maturation in the mosquitoes.

'This may not be the sole explanation,' said Dr Ooi Eng Eong, Head of the NEA's Environmental Health Institute. 'A few recent studies suggest that the genetic makeup of the virus could also determine the extent of manifestation of the disease. So, depending on the virus in circulation, we could see in some years more cases and in some years, fewer cases. However, this observation will need further evaluation.'

This is where the Singapore Dengue Consortium will play a part. It is hoped Singapore will achieve even better control of dengue by focusing its limited resources on those areas with a more virulent dengue virus as well as to advance the care and treatment of dengue patients through research. In addition, the efforts of the consortium could also be instrumental in speeding up the discovery of an anti-viral drug effective against the dengue virus.

'SingHealth is pleased to be part of this initiative to proactively address dengue infection,' said SingHealth's Group Chief Executive Officer, Prof Tan Ser Kiat. 'As a group of institutions managing more than 60 per cent of public healthcare patient load in Singapore, we look forward to sharing knowledge, expertise and pertinent data, and participating in leading-edge research towards reducing the dengue infection rates in Singapore. We hope this collaboration will serve as a model in dealing with other infectious diseases.'

'NITD will contribute its state-of-the-art in drug discovery know-how to find new therapies for dengue haemorrhagic fever and shock and will be fully complementary to the other members of the consortium,' added Paul Herrling, Chairman of the Board of Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases. 'NITD welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with other consortium members to alleviate the suffering caused by this disease'.

The first project on the drawing board is the dengue virus-sequencing project, which will provide information on the entire virus genome together with annotation of clinical data and patient history. This information will be valuable for surveillance as well as understanding the genetic variations of different serotypes. One long-term outcome may be to find genetic markers that predict the clinical severity of the disease.

Assoc Prof Mohan Balasubramanian, Acting Director at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, said: 'TLL is building up its reputation in the fields of cell and development biology and bio-informatics and we are particularly pleased to be part of the Singapore Dengue Consortium, which allows us to carry out science that is fundamental and relevant to Singapore.'

'The task is a challenging one, but the National Healthcare Group is confident that with the active participation and cooperation of the members of this Consortium, there will be some breakthrough discoveries,' said Dr Lim Suet Wun, Deputy CEO, National Healthcare Group.

Added the Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore, Prof Edison Liu: 'The Genome Institute of Singapore is delighted to participate and contribute to the Consortium. Our immediate focus is the full length sequencing of the multiple isolates of the dengue virus to determine its genetic diversity.'

Dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever are the most common mosquito-borne viral diseases in the world. The disease is common where the Aedes mosquitoes are prevalent, especially the Aedes aegypti. There is as yet no specific anti-viral drug to treat the disease nor is there a vaccine to prevent a person from being infected with the dengue virus. The only means right now is to control the Aedes mosquito population.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) was formed on 1 July 2002 as a statutory board of the Ministry of the Environment (ENV) to focus on the implementation of environmental services. Each of the NEA operational divisions - Environmental Protection, Public Health, and Meteorological Services - plays a vital role in ensuring a safe, clean and healthy environment for Singapore.