Sg has been R&D bio chem defence since 1980's.read
below
testing
kit called Scentmate & decontaminant
Demul-X.
Some biological defence breakthroughs were shown to the minister
during his visit to
DSO National
Laboratories on Friday.
DSO National Laboratories is Singapore's main defence R&D
organisation.
With the recent surge in terror attacks, it has expanded its scope
to areas like chemical and biological defence.
One such home-grown product is a testing kit called
Scentmate.
When it comes to bio-attacks, besides the attack itself, emergency
medical services get overwhelmed by the ensuing hysteria as people
crowd emergency rooms, fearing they've been exposed.
This happened after the sarin gas attack in Tokyo ten years
ago.
The prototype system shown can quickly screen mass numbers of
suspect cases compared to current systems which need those exposed
to have had a prior test.
Dr Loke Weng Keong, Head, Medical Countermeasures - Chemical, DSO
National Laboratories, said: " We look at the presence of something
else that is inside the blood and we do not need a baseline because
of that. This thing does not exist in your body normally and
because of this we can do mass screening on site without a
reference baseline - we can do 96 people in just half an
hour."
The idea behind projects like DSO's is to develop cutting edge
solutions not usually commercially available, like the Scentmate
Diagnostic kit that will be going for field testing.
It will then work with outside partners to commercialise it.
Another device is the decontaminant Demul-X.
Most commercial options currently tend to target either blister
type agents like mustard gas or a chemical agent like sarin.
Demul-X uses a double cylinder which works well against both types
of attacks and it'll be commercialised too.
Professor Jayakumar said: "The fight against terrorism does not
stop with just government agencies. The fight against terrorism is
a total effort - we have to have government agencies working
closely together on the one hand. And on the other hand, we also
need partners in the private sector, commercial organisations and
most importantly, with people at large and community
organisations."
Professor S Jayakumar says he is impressed with DSO's efforts. -
CNA/ch
-channel news asia 23.06.2006
2.Stimes 24.06.2006.pg H6.
Instead of spent 16 hours in lab,this kit just take 30 minutes to
test 96 persons.what they need is just pin-prick sample of
blood,instaed of
pre-measured indicators for comparsions.
3.pl read old posting
VX & Sarin gas---Spore ability in Bio Chem
protection
Emeritus Professor Ang How Ghee was one of the main players who
set up Singapore's chemical defence capabilities in the 1980s. The
67-year-old drew up the masterplan, linked the country with
overseas partners, and trained fledgling scientists in the
field.
