ESR investigators have been given the green light to unravel an unexplained and increasing epidemic of gastroenteritis in New Zealand. The bacterium Yersinia enterocolitica causes fever, diarrhoea abdominal pain and in 12 per cent of cases this requires hospital treatment. In last 12 months there have been 1,177 notified cases of yersiniosis, more than double the number…

Genome sequencing — the mapping of the genetic sequences of an organism — has helped track the spread of COVID-19 cases in Auckland, but it also plays an important role in the control of other infectious diseases in New Zealand. One example is Mycoplasma bovis, a global cattle disease New Zealand also hopes to eliminate.…

A novel approach to combatting antibiotic resistance in farm animals has won Otago Innovation’s $100,000 Proof of Concept Grant competition for 2020. OHA investigator Professor Sarah Hook and Dr Allan Gamble, from the School of Pharmacy, will use the prize to make chemically-modified antibiotics – known as prodrugs – which only activate in the presence…