OHA Management Group member Professor Michael Baker from the University of Otago, Wellington, has been awarded the New Zealand Association of Scientists (NZAS) Cranwell Medal for science communication for 2021. The award was presented by NZAS Co-Presidents Professor Troy Baisden (via Zoom) and Dr Lucy Stewart in person in Wellington, following the association’s online conference…

Our Spring newsletter congratulates the recipients of the HRC’s Liley Medal, announces the preliminary programme for the 7th OHA Symposium taking place in December and highlights recent OHA investigators providing expert opinion to media outlets on the COVID-19 pandemic. View the OHA Spring 2021 newsletter

New research suggests cross-species transmission of pathogens is intimately linked to human and environmental health, meaning areas with poor or challenging living conditions may be particularly susceptible to endemic and emerging diseases. School of Veterinary Science Disease Ecologist Dr Renata Muylaert and colleagues recently published the research paper titled ‘Community health and human-animal contacts on…

Happy World Antimicrobial Awareness Week! This year’s theme is “Spread awareness, stop resistance”. Two OHA investigators have helped promote this World Health Organisation backed campaign to New Zealanders this week: Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles from the University of Auckland has written an opinion piece published on Stuff on 22 November. And Dr Kristin Dyet discussed…

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…