{"id":13775,"date":"2020-09-08T20:34:57","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T00:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/?p=13775"},"modified":"2022-03-21T16:09:25","modified_gmt":"2022-03-21T20:09:25","slug":"singapore-covid-19-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/singapore-covid-19-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"From Singapore to Michigan, Alumna Fights COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alumna
Natasha Bagdasarian ’99 was working as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at National University Hospital in Singapore when the COVID-19 pandemic took shape. She now serves the World Health Organization as a consultant and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services as a senior public health physician.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When a listserv between epidemiologists first mentioned a unique syndrome identified in Wuhan, China, Natasha Bagdasarian \u201999 sensed trouble. It was December 31, 2019, and an atypical pneumonia outbreak had been linked to a novel coronavirus. At that time, there was still uncertainty on the transmissibility and severity of the new pathogen, and epidemiologists were put on alert.<\/p>\n

Bagdasarian was working as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at National University Hospital<\/a> in Singapore, where her job involved outbreak response, surveilling infections and contact tracing for contagious illnesses. To Bagdasarian, Singapore seemed to be a potential hot spot for this coronavirus, which eventually spiraled into the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSingapore was right in the path of this because we had a lot of direct flights between Singapore and Wuhan, and this was happening right before Chinese New Year when a lot of Singaporeans travel,\u201d Bagdasarian said.<\/p>\n

The first case in Singapore was confirmed on January 23. The earliest cases were individuals who had traveled from China, until local transmission began to develop in February and March. The Kalamazoo College alumna\u2019s role became vital in Singapore\u2019s response to COVID-19, especially when it came to contact tracing, a key strategy in fighting the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor every COVID patient, we would have to find out where they\u2019ve been in the last 14 days and give a very detailed summary to the Ministry of Health,\u201d Bagdasarian said. \u201cThen, the Ministry of Health would go to those people and places and look for contacts. Every patient that came into our hospital, we\u2019d sort of track their path and make sure there were no breaches in their care and that nobody in the hospital had been exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there was good news at this point, it was that Singapore had learned much of what it needed to do for an epidemic like COVID-19 during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in the early 2000s. The synergy Bagdasarian and her team developed with that knowledge, despite overseeing nearly 1,500 beds, led to zero cases of health care workers and non-COVID-19 patients contracting COVID-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody remembered the protocols,\u201d Bagdasarian said. \u201cWhen we needed additional capacity, we constructed a big outdoor tent as our emergency department overflow. Everything we did was sort of templated from SARS. It was a beautiful response to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon, her duties expanded, and she started examining cases outside hospitals in Singapore\u2019s densely populated areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose settings in Singapore include migrant worker dormitories, and some of them house thousands of workers,\u201d Bagdasarian said. \u201cIt was like taking the skills that we had learned in the hospital and extrapolating them to completely different settings to figure out strategies to stop transmission when you sometimes have up to 20 people living in one room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously, social distancing was impossible and distinctive approaches were necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other strategies you have to use such as cohorting, where you try to put together people who all have been exposed or have all been infected. That was really interesting work and it got me thinking about health care disparities, and how vulnerable populations have been impacted by COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bagdasarian returned to Michigan with her husband and young child this summer, when her husband\u2019s job with General Motors was transferred back to the U.S. However, the lessons she learned in Singapore are serving the world still today. She now serves the\u00a0World Health Organization<\/a> as a consultant and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services<\/a> as a senior public health physician.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat keeps me up at night is thinking of the unknown,\u201d she said. \u201cCOVID is bad. In the infectious disease community, we always knew there was a potential for something like this to happen. But COVID will not be the last zoonotic infection with pandemic potential to cross over to humans, and the next one could be worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Match Made at K<\/h2>\n

Natasha met her husband, Vahan, also \u201999, when they were first-year students at K. The couple met during orientation and were lab partners in their first biology<\/a> course, a class on evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe seemed so genuinely happy to be at K and eager to get the year started,\u201d Vahan said. \u201cI was more hesitant, but her positive energy was evident on day one and we quickly became good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

That lab and class experience helped steer Vahan away from the hard sciences and toward an economics major<\/a> and sociology minor<\/a>. Conversely, they solidified Natasha\u2019s interest in biology. Natasha added a second major in psychology and an extended, nine-month study abroad experience in Australia to her K-Plan<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

That extended experience was fateful because it put Natasha behind schedule in applying to medical school. That was all the reason she needed to first pursue a master\u2019s degree in public health at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile on foreign study, I read a book called, The Hot Zone<\/em>,\u201d Natasha said. \u201cIt talks about investigating Ebola outbreaks and I was absolutely captivated. That sort of propelled me through medical school with this goal in sight that I was going to be an infectious disease doctor and work in outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

She attended medical school at Wayne State University before serving an internal medicine residency and an infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

After Natasha\u2019s education was complete, Vahan had an opportunity to work for General Motors in Singapore. Natasha supported Vahan and followed him by taking a leap of faith with no guarantee she would be able to work. Medical training often is specific to an individual country, and many countries don\u2019t accept American medical training.<\/p>\n

However, \u201cSingapore at that time, they were still allowing some American medical trainees, and I ended up working at the most wonderful hospital,\u201d Natasha said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I got so lucky. It was five years of training for a COVID-like scenario under a boss who had years of experience working for an arm of the World Health Organization that does outreach to low- and middle-income countries when they experience outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

To complicate the scenario, Vahan\u2014after three years in Singapore\u2014was offered a chance to become the CFO for General Motors in the Africa and Middle East Region, meaning a move to Dubai. Fortunately, the hospital allowed Natasha to telecommute and continue her role with occasional visits back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a seven-and-a-half-hour flight from Singapore to Dubai and I worked remotely across time zones, but we made it work,\u201d Natasha said. \u201cI had a team on the ground that was absolutely wonderful. We would have Zoom calls a couple times a day, and then I would fly to Singapore every month. I did that for about two years when COVID hit. Then, I went to Singapore to work on the COVID response.\u201d<\/p>\n

That opportunity to work remotely until COVID-19 hit benefited Singapore, and continues to benefit the World Health Organization and the State of Michigan in her current roles. In the meantime, Vahan emphatically praises Natasha and the work she\u2019s done to fight the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren’t words really to describe how proud I am of Natasha,\u201d Vahan said. \u201cShe has spent countless sleepless nights working on this pandemic, but this is the norm. I’ve watched Natasha dive into various other outbreaks and give the same dedication and attention. Her love for her work and desire to help people is inspirational. Now that we are home in Michigan, I think it is very fitting that she can transfer that passion to her home state and work to keep us as safe as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a listserv between epidemiologists first mentioned a unique syndrome identified in Wuhan, China, Natasha Bagdasarian \u201999 sensed trouble. It was December 31, 2019, and an atypical pneumonia outbreak had been linked to a novel coronavirus. At that time, there was still uncertainty on the transmissibility and severity of the new pathogen, and epidemiologists were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":13783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[31,52],"post_formats":[],"class_list":["post-13775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","tag-alumni","tag-biology"],"yoast_head":"\r\nCOVID-19: Alumna Fights Pandemic From Singapore to Michigan<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Natasha Bagdasarian '99 was vital in Singapore\u2019s response to COVID-19, especially when it came to contact tracing at National University Hospital.\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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aria-label=\"archive of category Alumni\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/category\/alumni\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Alumni<\/a>","tags_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/alumni\/\" rel=\"tag\">alumni<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/tag\/biology\/\" rel=\"tag\">biology<\/a>","social_share_info":"<a data-share=\"facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/singapore-covid-19-fight\/\" class=\"pl-facebook-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-facebook-f\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/singapore-covid-19-fight\/\" class=\"pl-twiiter-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-twitter\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a><a data-share=\"linkedin\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?url=https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/singapore-covid-19-fight\/\" class=\"pl-linkedin-share social-share-default pl-social-share\" target=\"_blank\"><i class=\"fab fa-linkedin-in\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/a>","wordExcerpt_info":"<figure id=\"attachment_13781\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13781\" style=\"width: 397px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-13781\" src=\"\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/files\/2020\/09\/Alumna-Natasha-Bagdasarian-Fights-COVID-19.jpg\" alt=\"Alumna Natasha Bagdasarian Fights COVID-19\" width=\"397\" height=\"556\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13781\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Natasha Bagdasarian ’99 was working as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at National University Hospital in Singapore when the COVID-19 pandemic took shape. She now serves the World Health Organization as a consultant and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services as a senior public health physician.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When a listserv between epidemiologists first mentioned a unique syndrome identified in Wuhan, China, Natasha Bagdasarian \u201999 sensed trouble. It was December 31, 2019, and an atypical pneumonia outbreak had been linked to a novel coronavirus. At that time, there was still uncertainty on the transmissibility and severity of the new pathogen, and epidemiologists were put on alert.<\/p>\n<p>Bagdasarian was working as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nuh.com.sg\/Pages\/Home.aspx\">National University Hospital<\/a> in Singapore, where her job involved outbreak response, surveilling infections and contact tracing for contagious illnesses. To Bagdasarian, Singapore seemed to be a potential hot spot for this coronavirus, which eventually spiraled into the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSingapore was right in the path of this because we had a lot of direct flights between Singapore and Wuhan, and this was happening right before Chinese New Year when a lot of Singaporeans travel,\u201d Bagdasarian said.<\/p>\n<p>The first case in Singapore was confirmed on January 23. The earliest cases were individuals who had traveled from China, until local transmission began to develop in February and March. The Kalamazoo College alumna\u2019s role became vital in Singapore\u2019s response to COVID-19, especially when it came to contact tracing, a key strategy in fighting the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor every COVID patient, we would have to find out where they\u2019ve been in the last 14 days and give a very detailed summary to the Ministry of Health,\u201d Bagdasarian said. \u201cThen, the Ministry of Health would go to those people and places and look for contacts. Every patient that came into our hospital, we\u2019d sort of track their path and make sure there were no breaches in their care and that nobody in the hospital had been exposed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If there was good news at this point, it was that Singapore had learned much of what it needed to do for an epidemic like COVID-19 during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in the early 2000s. The synergy Bagdasarian and her team developed with that knowledge, despite overseeing nearly 1,500 beds, led to zero cases of health care workers and non-COVID-19 patients contracting COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody remembered the protocols,\u201d Bagdasarian said. \u201cWhen we needed additional capacity, we constructed a big outdoor tent as our emergency department overflow. Everything we did was sort of templated from SARS. It was a beautiful response to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Soon, her duties expanded, and she started examining cases outside hospitals in Singapore\u2019s densely populated areas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose settings in Singapore include migrant worker dormitories, and some of them house thousands of workers,\u201d Bagdasarian said. \u201cIt was like taking the skills that we had learned in the hospital and extrapolating them to completely different settings to figure out strategies to stop transmission when you sometimes have up to 20 people living in one room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, social distancing was impossible and distinctive approaches were necessary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are other strategies you have to use such as cohorting, where you try to put together people who all have been exposed or have all been infected. That was really interesting work and it got me thinking about health care disparities, and how vulnerable populations have been impacted by COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bagdasarian returned to Michigan with her husband and young child this summer, when her husband\u2019s job with General Motors was transferred back to the U.S. However, the lessons she learned in Singapore are serving the world still today. She now serves the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/\">World Health Organization<\/a> as a consultant and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigan.gov\/mdhhs\/\">Michigan Department of Health and Human Services<\/a> as a senior public health physician.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat keeps me up at night is thinking of the unknown,\u201d she said. \u201cCOVID is bad. In the infectious disease community, we always knew there was a potential for something like this to happen. But COVID will not be the last zoonotic infection with pandemic potential to cross over to humans, and the next one could be worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>A Match Made at K<\/h2>\n<p>Natasha met her husband, Vahan, also \u201999, when they were first-year students at K. The couple met during orientation and were lab partners in their first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/programs\/biology\/\">biology<\/a> course, a class on evolution.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe seemed so genuinely happy to be at K and eager to get the year started,\u201d Vahan said. \u201cI was more hesitant, but her positive energy was evident on day one and we quickly became good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That lab and class experience helped steer Vahan away from the hard sciences and toward an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/programs\/economics-business\/\">economics major<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/programs\/anthropology-sociology\/\">sociology minor<\/a>. Conversely, they solidified Natasha\u2019s interest in biology. Natasha added a second major in psychology and an extended, nine-month study abroad experience in Australia to her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/k-plan\/\"><em>K-Plan<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That extended experience was fateful because it put Natasha behind schedule in applying to medical school. That was all the reason she needed to first pursue a master\u2019s degree in public health at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile on foreign study, I read a book called, <em>The Hot Zone<\/em>,\u201d Natasha said. \u201cIt talks about investigating Ebola outbreaks and I was absolutely captivated. That sort of propelled me through medical school with this goal in sight that I was going to be an infectious disease doctor and work in outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She attended medical school at Wayne State University before serving an internal medicine residency and an infectious diseases fellowship at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n<p>After Natasha\u2019s education was complete, Vahan had an opportunity to work for General Motors in Singapore. Natasha supported Vahan and followed him by taking a leap of faith with no guarantee she would be able to work. Medical training often is specific to an individual country, and many countries don\u2019t accept American medical training.<\/p>\n<p>However, \u201cSingapore at that time, they were still allowing some American medical trainees, and I ended up working at the most wonderful hospital,\u201d Natasha said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I got so lucky. It was five years of training for a COVID-like scenario under a boss who had years of experience working for an arm of the World Health Organization that does outreach to low- and middle-income countries when they experience outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To complicate the scenario, Vahan\u2014after three years in Singapore\u2014was offered a chance to become the CFO for General Motors in the Africa and Middle East Region, meaning a move to Dubai. Fortunately, the hospital allowed Natasha to telecommute and continue her role with occasional visits back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a seven-and-a-half-hour flight from Singapore to Dubai and I worked remotely across time zones, but we made it work,\u201d Natasha said. \u201cI had a team on the ground that was absolutely wonderful. We would have Zoom calls a couple times a day, and then I would fly to Singapore every month. I did that for about two years when COVID hit. Then, I went to Singapore to work on the COVID response.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That opportunity to work remotely until COVID-19 hit benefited Singapore, and continues to benefit the World Health Organization and the State of Michigan in her current roles. In the meantime, Vahan emphatically praises Natasha and the work she\u2019s done to fight the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere aren’t words really to describe how proud I am of Natasha,\u201d Vahan said. \u201cShe has spent countless sleepless nights working on this pandemic, but this is the norm. I’ve watched Natasha dive into various other outbreaks and give the same dedication and attention. Her love for her work and desire to help people is inspirational. Now that we are home in Michigan, I think it is very fitting that she can transfer that passion to her home state and work to keep us as safe as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","comment_info":"No Comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13775"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13782,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13775\/revisions\/13782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13775"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kzoo.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_formats?post=13775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}