# 4423
Singapore is an island city-state located on the tip of the Malay Peninsula, with nearly 5 million inhabitants. It is one of only three present day sovereign city-states, the other two being The Vatican and Monaco.
Long considered The Crossroads of the Orient, Singapore is literally surrounded by countries that have seen outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu in poultry and sporadic cases in humans.
Their proximity to Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand is enough to give them pause, knowing that a pandemic outbreak in any of these neighboring countries would likely spill over to them in short order.
Consequently Singapore has been very active in making pandemic preparations (see In The Wake Of SARS, Singapore Prepares), and has recently ordered 1 million doses of H5N1 vaccine for their national stockpile.
Since vaccines have a limited shelf life (18 months to 2 years), making this sort of financial commitment is not an easy decision. Their move to stockpile vaccine illustrates that - while largely absent from U.S. newspaper headlines - concerns over the bird flu virus have not gone away.
This report from The Straits Times.
S'pore buys 1m H5N1 shots
March 12, 2010
H5N1 bug could be a bigger killer than H1N1 if it mutates
By Salma Khalik, Health Correspondent
SINGAPORE has bought a million doses of a vaccine to protect the people here against the H5N1 bird flu.
The vaccine will arrive by the end of the year.
The bug is particularly scary for Singapore, which sits next to Indonesia, the country with the most cases (163) and deaths (135) from the virus. Vietnam, with the next highest number of cases (115) and deaths (58), is also nearby.
Both countries have already had one death each this year.
Unlike the H1N1 pandemic that swept the globe last year, the H5N1 bug could be a bigger killer by far if it mutates.
Of the 486 people reported to have been infected by H5N1 since 2003, 287 have died. This works out to an almost six-in-10 death rate.
