Dale Fisher

In February 2020, Fisher was on the World Health Organization-led team that visited China to understand technical aspects of the COVID-19 virus; the severity, transmissibility and interventions that could guide the global response to the pandemic outbreak.

During the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic, which began in China, Fisher was part of the World Health Organization’s team that visited China to understand about the virus, and to guide the global response to the pandemic.

Fisher was also the infectious disease physician who attended to comedian Jerry Lewis, when the late comedian was admitted to hospital for meningitis while on tour in Darwin. Lewis, when interviewed by Larry King, said “God must have put him in “the bush” (aka Darwin) because Dr Fisher was the world’s best infectious disease physician.”

This event would later be identified as significant in determining Fisher’s career pathway in outbreak response.

In a separate article titled “Atypical presentations of SARS” published in The Lancet, Fisher and colleagues examined the difficulties of managing SARS cases without a diagnostic test. This letter described how the World Health Organization’s criteria for probable or suspected SARS case had been misinterpreted. It was intended for epidemiological purposes but instead were used for triage for which they were not sensitive enough. The article concluded that the atypical presentations of SARS pose a threat to patients, staff and visitors, and while the WHO’s definition is a useful guide, it does not substitute for a thorough clinical, laboratory and radiological assessment of patients.

During the ongoing 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic, which began in Wuhan, China, Fisher was part of the WHO delegation that visited China to investigate technical aspects of transmission, severity and interventions preventing spread of the emerging virus. The subsequent report outlined how the world could respond to the outbreak, but warned that the world was not prepared “in capacity or mindset”.

He is also involved in many pilot projects that spearhead on research and response. In his article “Q&A: The novel coronavirus outbreak causing COVID-19”, Fisher shared his concerns about the emerging virus. For instance, the world’s population is completely vulnerable to the novel virus as it is newly emerged in humans, and the current aim of the global response is to flatten the epidemic curve, by interrupting chains of transmission wherever possible. It was also mentioned that while there are deaths that are linked to the virus, the greatest concern right now is the overwhelming of a health system in the wake of excessive transmission.

In the article titled “Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Control in Singapore– Moving Forward”, he described how MRSA infection in hospitals could be prevented and should not be considered as an accepted tolerable by-product of healthcare. Failure to implement long-term sustainable infection control initiatives is not an option. It was also concluded that the control of MRSA in Singapore could be achieved, but it required implementation of many varied control measures across health services, and possibly would take a decade to do so.

Among many other papers on MRSA, in 2013 he published “Sustained MRSA control in a hyper-endemic tertiary acute care hospital with infrastructure challenges in Singapore”. It highlighted falls in bacteraemia, all clinical specimens as well as acquisition rates as a result of the previously described interventions.

For their efforts in reducing the rate of MRSA superbug infection from 1 in 10 patients to 1 in 40, Fisher and his colleagues were awarded the National Clinical Excellence Team Award in 2013 by the Ministry of Health, Singapore.

In addition to his career in hospitals, Fisher is actively involved in the international medical community. He began his involvement in the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) in 2009 as a training faculty in Laos, and has undertaken numerous operational and training missions as well as consultations in many countries through GOARN as well as bilateral arrangements.

In response to H1N1 2009 outbreaks, he undertook missions as requested at the National level deploying to Malaysia, Mongolia, China and Myanmar. Likewise at the request of WHO and the Liberian Government he undertook missions for the Ebola response through 2014-5 which lead to a number of published reviews and commentaries relating to clinical care and infection prevention and control. He has participated in several WHO Guidelines Development Groups in infection control, including related to Ebola, measles and COVID-19. He currently sits as Chair of the GOARN Steering Committee and Chair of the National Infection Prevention and Control (NIPC) Committee in Singapore, and chairs the OPAT workgroup of the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

He moved to Singapore in 2003, after working more than a decade at the Royal Darwin Hospital in infectious diseases and general internal medicine.

During the SARS pandemic in 2003 in Singapore, Fisher with colleagues published several articles related to "Lessons from Singapore”. In these articles, it was described that SARS had demonstrated a remarkable efficiency in transmission within hospitals. In fact, 76% of SARS cases in Singapore were acquired in hospitals. They also looked at the circumstances that caused transmission within hospitals, despite the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Fisher was awarded the Courage Medal from the Courage Foundation, Singapore, for his contribution towards combating SARS outbreak in Singapore in 2003.

The 2002 Bali bombings, which occurred in 12 October 2002 resulted in the death of 202 people and injuring many more. As the local hospital was ill-equipped to deal with the scale of disaster, many of the injured were evacuated to Darwin.

Following the bombing, Fisher wrote an article titled “The Bali bombings of 12 October 2002: lessons in disaster management for physicians”, which was published in 2003. Fisher’s team highlighted that hospital-based physicians should see themselves as a sizeable and flexible group with the ability to contribute in a variety of ways during a disaster.

Fisher began his career as a Staff Specialist Physician at the Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) in 1993 specialising in Infectious Diseases, before progressing to become the Director of Division of Medicine. He came to Singapore in 2003, after responding to a call to assist with the SARS epidemic in Singapore. In 2006, he was appointed Clinical Director of Medicine at the National University Hospital, Singapore, where he maintained his strong commitment to general medicine as a clinician and a teacher, despite his work and experience as an infectious disease physician.

Fisher received his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree from the University of Tasmania in 1985 and became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in 1992, doing most of his training at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. His final year of training was in Darwin under the supervision of Professor Bart Currie.

In 1976, he attended United World College of South East Asia in Singapore under a scholarship provided by the State and Federal Governments.

Dale Andrew Fisher FRACP (born 1960) is an Australian physician who specialises in Infectious Diseases and is a Senior Consultant in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He is also a Professor of Medicine at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (2004 -), the chair of the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee through the Ministry of Health, Singapore (2013 -), and chair of the steering committee of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (2017 -) hosted by the World Health Organization.

Fisher was born in Melbourne in 1960 but moved to Hobart, Tasmania in 1973 when his father (1926-2013) was appointed the Registrar of Motor Vehicles. His mother (1929-) was a nurse who worked shifts, in order to bring in a second income throughout Fisher’s schooling years.