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Posts by Matt Blakiston

Case–control study of leptospirosis in Aotearoa New Zealand reveals behavioural, occupational, and environmental risk factors | Epidemiology & Infection | Cambridge Core Case–control study of leptospirosis in Aotearoa New Zealand reveals behavioural, occupational, and environmental risk factors - Volume 153

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

5 months ago 1 0 0 0
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RSV immunisation could prevent thousands of babies being hospitalised A "game-changer" immunisation that could save thousands of babies from a potentially deadly lung infection is sitting in the hands of Pharmac, according to respiratory health experts.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

5 months ago 1 0 0 0
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Three-year-old dies of sepsis after several mistakes at hospital A junior doctor suspected Alexzander Sutherland-Hunt had sepsis, but didn't give him the recommened antibiotic. It wasn't the first error that night.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

6 months ago 0 0 0 0
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Performance and potential utility of the BioFire Joint Infection Panel with synovial fluid and joint tissue specimens | Journal of Clinical Microbiology This study compared the BioFire Joint Infection polymerase chain reaction panel to standard culture-based methods for detecting organisms causing joint infections. This is a relatively new test, and the data published so far show it performs well with ...

Performance and potential utility of the BioFire Joint Infection Panel with synovial fluid and joint tissue specimens | Journal of Clinical Microbiology journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

6 months ago 1 0 0 0
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'NZ on wrong side of history on Palestine' - Helen Clark Former Prime Minister Helen Clark said the government's decision not to recognise a Palestinian state was very disappointing.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

6 months ago 0 0 0 0
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Capturing the complete clinical spectrum and incidence of severe acute Group A Streptococcus (GAS) disease: a population-based study in Auckland, New Zealand This study demonstrates that the complete clinical spectrum of severe acute GAS disease occurs in Auckland and is associated with a substantial health and economic burden. The high incidence and entir...

The complete spectrum of serious #StrepA disease was observed in Auckland in 2023 - a mighty lab-based enhanced surveillance effort led by Andrew Fox-Lewis and Rachel Webb www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

9 months ago 7 2 0 0
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Pandemic mitigations reveal an association between superficial group A streptococcal infections and acute rheumatic fever incidence in Auckland New Zealand Published in Emerging Microbes & Infections (Vol. 14, No. 1, 2025)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

8 months ago 2 0 0 0
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Mycoplasma pneumoniae: re-emergence and beyond The re-emergence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in late 2023 placed a considerable burden on health-care systems and raised concerns regarding the severity of pneumonia outbreaks.1 The European Society of C...

New correspondence

#Mycoplasma pneumoniae: re-emergence and beyond

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

#IDSky #ClinMicro #MicroSky #OpenAccess #OA

9 months ago 6 4 0 0
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'He's left an intergenerational legacy' - Tributes for author Maurice Gee Respected Kiwi writer Maurice Gee - author of Plumb and Under the Mountain - has died, aged 93.

www.rnz.co.nz/life/books/h...

10 months ago 0 0 0 0
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RSV vaccine used in 40 other countries could save babies' lives - doctors New Zealand has the world's highest rates of serious illness caused by RSV, with 2000 children under five admitted to hospital each year.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

11 months ago 1 0 0 0
Clinical alert: arrival of terbinafine resistant Trichophyton indotineae in New Zealand The New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ) is the principal scientific journal for the medical profession in New Zealand. The Journal has become a fundamental resource for providing research and written p...

nzmj.org.nz/journal/vol-...

1 year ago 1 0 0 0
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Global spatiotemporal dynamics of Mycoplasma pneumoniae re-emergence after COVID-19 pandemic restrictions: an epidemiological and transmission modelling study This large global dataset for M pneumoniae detections shows that although there was an unprecedented high number of detections across many countries in late 2023, the severity and number of deaths rem...

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

1 year ago 0 0 0 0
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On Why Our China Panic Is About To Get Expensive Allegedly, the defence environment has changed, and New Zealand thus needs to spend significantly more on Defence. The rationale is that China (our main trading partner) has been raising its profile i...

THIS! ⬇️
Western allies (including NZ) think it's OK to take part in massive US-led war gaming exercises targeted at China Yet in the past few days NZ has been shocked–shocked!–that China has dared to sail 3 warships through international waters in the Tasman
www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL25...

1 year ago 28 14 2 0

Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern #Gaza is out of service — following the raid, forced patient and staff evacuation and the detention of its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya two days ago. His whereabouts are unknown. We call for his immediate release.

1 year ago 46 28 3 0

#IDSky

1 year ago 5 4 0 0

www.bmj.com/content/387/...

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Management, outcomes and predictors of mortality of Cryptococcus infection in patients without HIV:
A multicentre study from Australia and New Zealand
Coussement et al, 2024 | Clinical Infectious Diseases
426 patients without HIV diagnosed with cryptococcosis between 2015 and 2019 in Australia and New Zealand
Use of induction therapy:
Common in central nervous system cryptococcosis (99.5%, 192/193), typically with liposomal amphotericin + flucytosine (94%, 181/193), with mean duration 31 $ 13 days
27% of cases of isolated lung infection
(i.e., azole antifungal as 1* line treatment in 73%, 120/166)
Distinct outcomes of C. gattii infection:
(versus C. neoformans)
Lower mortality (adjusted odds ratio: 0.47, 95% C| 0.23-0.95, all-cause 1-year mortality: 11% for C. gattii vs. 28% for C. neoformans)
Higher risk of immune reconstitution inflammatory response (21% vs 3% in central nervous system infection, p < 0.001)
No microbiological relapses:
None of 19 patients who had re-induction with amphotericin-based therapy for suspected relapse had confirmed microbiological relapse (i.e. positive culture)
Central nervous system immune reconstitution inflammatory response seen in 16/426 patients (4%)
At 1 year post-diagnosis, low rate of resolution of:
serum cryptococcal antigen positivity (25% resolved)
lung imaging abnormalities (34% resolved)

Management, outcomes and predictors of mortality of Cryptococcus infection in patients without HIV: A multicentre study from Australia and New Zealand Coussement et al, 2024 | Clinical Infectious Diseases 426 patients without HIV diagnosed with cryptococcosis between 2015 and 2019 in Australia and New Zealand Use of induction therapy: Common in central nervous system cryptococcosis (99.5%, 192/193), typically with liposomal amphotericin + flucytosine (94%, 181/193), with mean duration 31 $ 13 days 27% of cases of isolated lung infection (i.e., azole antifungal as 1* line treatment in 73%, 120/166) Distinct outcomes of C. gattii infection: (versus C. neoformans) Lower mortality (adjusted odds ratio: 0.47, 95% C| 0.23-0.95, all-cause 1-year mortality: 11% for C. gattii vs. 28% for C. neoformans) Higher risk of immune reconstitution inflammatory response (21% vs 3% in central nervous system infection, p < 0.001) No microbiological relapses: None of 19 patients who had re-induction with amphotericin-based therapy for suspected relapse had confirmed microbiological relapse (i.e. positive culture) Central nervous system immune reconstitution inflammatory response seen in 16/426 patients (4%) At 1 year post-diagnosis, low rate of resolution of: serum cryptococcal antigen positivity (25% resolved) lung imaging abnormalities (34% resolved)

Management, outcomes and predictors of mortality of Cryptococcus infection in patients without HIV: a multicentre study in 46 hospitals from Australia and New Zealand

academic.oup.com/cid/advance-... #IDSky #MedMycoSky

1 year ago 37 13 0 0
A laboratory-developed extraction free real-time PCR for Group A Streptococcus in throat swabs: greater detection and faster results The New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ) is the principal scientific journal for the medical profession in New Zealand. The Journal has become a fundamental resource for providing research and written p...
1 year ago 0 0 0 0
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The association between antimicrobial resistance mutations and treatment outcomes for Mycoplasma genitalium infections from 2018 to 2022: a cross-sectional study from Auckland, New Zealand Background New Zealand has among the highest rates of antimicrobial resistance in Mycoplasma genitalium in the world. The aim of this study was to correlate treatment outcomes with 23S rRNA and parC m...

The association between antimicrobial resistance mutations and treatment outcomes for Mycoplasma genitalium infections from 2018 to 2022: a cross-sectional study from Auckland, New Zealand www.publish.csiro.au/SH/SH24166

1 year ago 3 0 0 0
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Over 250 Deans of Humanities (that’s subjects like History, Philosophy & languages like Te Reo & Chinese) & social sciences (subjects like economics /political science) strongly condemn the govt’s effective end to all humanities & social science research funding in NZ dassh.edu.au/deans-condem...

1 year ago 111 50 1 0
Cartoon. Title: Frontline/Backroom. Drawing of a surgeon made up of words: Specialists, Surgeons, Doctors, Teaching, Anaesthetists, Nurses, Physios, Psychologists, Radiologists, Phlebotomists, Laboratory Technicians, Midwives, Orderlies, Bookings, Security, Laundry, Pathology, Data & Digital, Maintenance, Pharmacists, Finance, Records, Cleaners, Catering, Reception, Dieticians, Procurement, Nurse Aids, OTs, and many many many more

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Cartoon. Title: Frontline/Backroom. Drawing of a surgeon made up of words: Specialists, Surgeons, Doctors, Teaching, Anaesthetists, Nurses, Physios, Psychologists, Radiologists, Phlebotomists, Laboratory Technicians, Midwives, Orderlies, Bookings, Security, Laundry, Pathology, Data & Digital, Maintenance, Pharmacists, Finance, Records, Cleaners, Catering, Reception, Dieticians, Procurement, Nurse Aids, OTs, and many many many more ‪

No one person who works in the health system can do their job without a whole lot of other people doing theirs.
Te Whatu Ora is set to cut nearly 1500 jobs, with more to come in the new year.
My Stuff #cartoon today #NZpol #HealthNZ #MāoriHealth

1 year ago 209 86 6 7
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Wise words from Dr Riina Richardson on clinical lab testing #ISHAM24

1 year ago 1 1 0 0

See the occasional OXA-23 producing E. coli. Or maybe some very cranked up tem or oxa-1 production with a porin mutation. Looks like inhibited by avibactam, so some type of non class B enzyme contributing at least…🤷🏻‍♂️

1 year ago 1 0 0 0
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Insights into durability against resistance from the antibiotic nitrofurantoin - npj Antimicrobials and Resistance npj Antimicrobials and Resistance - Insights into durability against resistance from the antibiotic nitrofurantoin

📣 New perspective paper: Insights into durability against resistance from the antibiotic nitrofurantoin

We discuss what makes nitrofurantoin robust against resistance evolution, in spite of prolonged and extensive usage against UTIs #MicroSky

Open access/CC-BY-4.0: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

1 year ago 71 37 7 4

My favourite way as a microbiologist to mess with people's minds is to recommend a 6 or a 9 day course of antibiotics

1 year ago 21 1 3 2
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Incorporating patient, nursing and environmental factors into antimicrobial stewardship: effects of simplifying treatment from cefuroxime to ceftriaxone - PubMed This simplification of our AG from a three-times-daily to a once-daily antibiotic resulted in considerable savings for our hospital (roughly 1.7 full-time equivalent nurses and over a tonne of waste y...

#IDSky colleague from New Zealand @maxgbloomfield.bsky.social sent us his study on environmental benefits when they switched TID cefuroxime to once a day ceftriaxone. They had a 383kg waste reduction! Nice to connect with #IDSky across the globe on sustainability.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38696830/

1 year ago 23 9 2 1