OHA investigator Dr Sarah Jefferies and team have been awarded the Health Research Council’s prestigious Liley Medal as part of the Royal Society Te Apārangi’s Research Honours for their landmark paper analysing the impact of New Zealand’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lead author Dr Jefferies (pictured fourth from left), who specialises in communicable disease surveillance…

ESR’s work in genomic sequencing which highlights the criticality of working closely with indigenous communities has been highlighted this week at the Annual Conference of the American Society of Human Genetics. The conference brings the global human genetics and genomics research community together for multiple days of cutting-edge science across all areas of human genetics.…

As much as we wanted to hold our annual symposium face-to-face this year, we’ve made the decision to move the meeting in December 2021 to an online format given the uncertainties associated with COVID-19 at the time of the symposium. Making this move now, provides some certainty to all of our OHA members, symposium attendees…

The innovative ESR-led WellKiwis study continues to grow as it moves towards recruiting 600 Wellin​​gton w​hānau, who are helping revolutionise vaccine development and b​uilding understanding about immune imprinting. WellKiwis attracted significant interest after the study was canvassed on TVNZ’s Sunday recently, but, as the Programme’s Principal Investigator Dr Sue Huang says, more whānau need to join. Developing a…

This winter’s newsletter includes the latest information about our 7th symposium in December, welcomes Dr Kristin Dyet from ESR to our Management Group and highlights OHA investigators who continue to provide media with accurate and timely expert opinion on the COVID-19 pandemic. View the OHA Winter 2021 Newsletter.

A unique study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) with Watercare and the University of Auckland confirms the benefit of wastewater testing as an early warning system for COVID-19. The paper: Sensitivity of wastewater-based epidemiology for detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in a low prevalence setting, has been released as a preprint on…

We knew the Delta variant would eventually arrive in Aotearoa, but real-time sequencing, which produces full genomes from positive cases in less than 12 hours, will ensure the lockdown is as short and effective as possible. There are now 21 cases and we can expect more to be reported over the coming days. Genome sequencing…

Eradicating COVID‑19 across the globe is theoretically more feasible than for polio but much less so than it was for smallpox, according to an analysis by New Zealand researchers. The researchers, writing in the international journal BMJ Global Health, ranked the feasibility of eradicating the three diseases based on technical, socio-political and economic factors. Smallpox, which…

OHA investigators and collaborators based at ESR and the NZ Food Safety Science Research Centre (NZFSSRC) have had an opinion piece published on Stuff which warns consumers about the emergence of Salmonella Enteritidis. This strain has been linked to 119 cases of salmonellosis since 2019, with 40 percent of those infected ending up in hospital.…

Weekly data collected by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) is providing health experts with critical information about the outbreak of RSV currently being experienced across New Zealand. ESR virologist and OHA investigator Dr Sue Huang says weekly numbers reported by the national virus laboratory network started climbing sharply in June, reaching 538 cases…