Two One Health Aotearoa investigators have been recognised in the 2021 New Years Honours list. Professor Stephen Chambers from the Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science, University of Otago, Christchurch, received the CNZM for services to infectious diseases research. Professor Chambers established the Infectious Diseases Department at Christchurch Hospital in 1987, the first such service…

Our spring 2020 newsletter includes full programme information and details for our sixth Symposium next month, and highlights Legionella research by The Infection Group at the University of Otago, Christchurch.   View the One Health Aotearoa Spring 2020 newsletter.

One Health Aotearoa investigators involved in leptospirosis research have recently published a couple of articles in the journals Pathogens and Animals. Diverse Epidemiology of Leptospira Serovars Notified in New Zealand Dr Shahista Nisa and colleagues from ESR, University of Otago and Massey University used routinely collected leptospirosis surveillance data from 1999 to 2017 to highlight the…

A new global report that provides advice and solutions to decision makers around how to prevent pandemics has just been released, with input from Massey University’s Professor of Infectious Disease Ecology, David Hayman. Professor Hayman’s expertise is focused on the relationship between viruses and how they are transmitted between animals and humans, with a particular…

How hopeful should Australians and New Zealanders be about COVID-19 vaccines becoming available in 2021? And what do we need to learn from 2020 and this pandemic as we speed towards the new year? On November 5 2020, The Conversation and Avid Reader bookshop hosted a special trans-Tasman online event, giving our readers a chance…

The sixth One Health Aotearoa Sympsoium takes place in regional hubs around the country and online in five weeks’ time. The OHA Symposium Organising Committee has released the preliminary programme which covers the big One Health issues affecting New Zealand and further afield. View the 6th One Health Aotearoa Symposium preliminary programme [PDF, 235KB] Sessions…

Two leading experts in agriculture and environment from Massey University will work alongside farmers from the Waikato region to find solutions to sediment retention after being granted $50,000 from the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge. One Health Aotearoa Principal Investigator Professor Russell Death, a freshwater ecologist, and Professor Ian Fuller, a fluvial geomorphologist, have formed a partnership after being approached by Waikato farmer Blair…

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…