Singapore hawkers suffer blow as Bukit Merah tuberculosis cases keep patrons away: ‘they don’t even dare to come to take away’
- Vendors at ABC Brickworks Market and Food Centre said sales slumped by up to 50 per cent following the outbreak in the locality
- ‘Since there is such a drop in business, I might as well take a break and don’t waste my time,’ said a hawker, who underwent a mandatory tuberculosis screening
Hawkers said on Thursday, the first day of screening for the disease, that regulars avoided the area as they thought the disease was deadly and infectious after the news broke, and that business dropped by up to 50 per cent.
Stall assistant John Lim, 29, who works at a bakery at ABC Brickworks, said: “I will say [business is] worse than [during] Covid-19. Because Covid, during lockdown, customers still come [to take away]. But for this, they don’t even dare to come to take away.”
Also speaking to the media on Thursday, the area’s Member of Parliament, Eric Chua, noted the fall in traffic at the food centre and exhorted patrons to return.
“I would also like to urge everyone to not avoid ABC market because the business here has been quite badly affected since news of this TB screening came out,” he said.
Mandatory screening for tuberculosis in the Bukit Merah area began on Thursday in the authorities’ largest such exercise to date. The exercise comes after another 10 active cases were detected, linked to a cluster first uncovered in 2022.
These 10 cases were discovered between February 2022 and July 2023, and linked to the cluster through genetic analysis.