The National Public Health Laboratory (NPHL) was set up in March 2009 as part of the Communicable Disease Division with the Ministry of Health (MOH), Singapore. NPHL provides specialised laboratory tests to track changes in existing organisms, detect new and re-emerging diseases and respond to outbreaks. In the past, NPHL has supported MOH in outbreak investigations, including investigations into the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, the Chikungunya outbreak and the Zika outbreak in 2016.

Currently, NPHL is actively involved in the lab surveillance and preparedness for highly infectious pathogens, such as MERS-CoV, H7N9 and Ebola. With the formation of NCID, NPHL is now one of NCID’s public health units to be located at Level 13.  NPHL’s facilities will include a biosafety-level 3 (BSL3) containment facility which will be dedicated to the surveillance of infections of public health importance as well as the detection and identification of novel pathogens.

The mission of NPHL is to use the best possible science for the laboratory surveillance of infectious diseases and the investigation of outbreaks. NPHL works closely with its partners in government agencies, medical laboratories and research institutions to enable a coordinated and broad-based response to infectious threats