Matt Blakiston

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...

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....

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

'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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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.

#IDSky

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

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

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

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...

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

Wise words from Dr Riina Richardson on clinical lab testing #ISHAM24

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…🤷🏻‍♂️

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...

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

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/