Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Bill passed in Parliament: Upcoming update to Singapore’s public health postures

27 March 2024

On 7 March 2024, the Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Bill (“Bill”) was passed in Parliament.

In their second reading speeches, Minister for Health Ong Ye Kung (“Mr Ong”) and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Rahayu Mahzam (“Mdm Rahayu”) explained that the Bill incorporates amendments arising from the Ministry of Health’s (“MOH”) comprehensive review of the Infectious Diseases Act 1976 (“IDA”), including the porting over to the IDA of various powers set out in Part 7 of the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020 (“Part 7”) that continue to be relevant to future pandemic responses.

With the changes brought about by the Bill, Mr Ong explained that Singapore’s public health response will comprise four postures under the IDA:

  • Baseline: “Baseline” is a peacetime state where routine disease prevention and control measures, along with public health surveillance programmes, are in place. During peacetime, the primary objective is to detect outbreaks early to prevent and mitigate disease spread.
  • Outbreak Management: Under “Outbreak Management”, where there are signs of an emerging infectious disease overseas, upstream measures, such as pre-departure health requirements, temperature screening, or stay orders on persons entering Singapore, may be implemented to prevent the disease from being introduced into Singapore. This will help prevent disease importation and transmission and buy the Government time to understand the new disease. In the event of a local outbreak, measures such as testing, treatment, and contact tracing may be implemented.
  • Public Health Threat: “Public Health Threat” (“PHT”) is for situations that may require more widespread or prolonged measures, up to and including those that were imposed during the Circuit Breaker. All these powers are currently found in Part 7 and will be ported over to the IDA as powers under a PHT.
  • Public Health Emergency: “Public Health Emergency” is the most dire of public health crises where even stricter measures, such as curfews or the requisition of resources under the Requisition of Resources Act 1985, may be implemented.

The Bill also streamlines legislation and makes provisions for operational effectiveness, by drawing on lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Further, the Bill will repeal Part 11 of the Covid-19 (Temporary) Measures Act 2020 (“Part 11”), which was introduced in 2021 to provide assurance to the public that personal contact tracing data collected using digital contact tracing systems including TraceTogether and SafeEntry (collectively, “TTSE”) were limited for the purposes of contact tracing for Covid-19 and for criminal investigations and proceedings in respect of serious offences. As TTSE has since been deactivated and personal contact tracing data has been deleted (save for one exception in relation to a criminal matter), Part 11 is no longer required.

With the rapid advancement of digital technology, precision medicine, and artificial intelligence, Mr Ong explained in his speech that Part 11 is bound to be obsolete when the next pandemic hits. Should the Government implement a digital personal data collection tool to be part of the arsenal to fight a future pandemic, the Government will need to address data protection concerns and provide assurance to the public and pass legislation in Parliament, if necessary.

The Bill also introduces a provision which excludes persons living with HIV from the disclosure requirement in the IDA if the person has maintained an undetectable viral load for a certain period of time preceding the sexual activity in question. More details will be set out in subsidiary legislation. Mdm Rahayu explained in her speech that this amendment aligns with medical advancements and the public health objective to curb transmission by shifting greater responsibility to individuals to get tested and treated for HIV in order to achieve and maintain a stable undetectable viral load. 

Reference materials

The following materials can be found on the Parliament website www.parliament.gov.sg and MOH website www.moh.gov.sg: