Postgraduate teaching

• 20 July: Nguyen Thi Diep completed the requirements for her MVS degree. Thesis title: 'Post vaccination surveillance and molecular epidemiology of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Vietnam'.
 

Talks to scientific groups

• 4-8 July 2011 : Cord Heuer was invited by NIMBIOS/University of Tennessee, US, to participate in an international workshop of scientists involved in Johne's disease modeling.  ( The meeting was attended by participants from Denmark, France, Israel, UK, New Zealand, and US, and was funded by USDA. Expertise covered immunology, epidemiology, clinical veterinary medicine, and mathematics. )

Papers published

• Marta Martinez Aviles . Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, Aug 10. doi: 10.1111/j.1865-1682.2011.01253.x. [Epub ahead of print]
• Widanarko U, Legg S, Stevenson M, Devereux J, Eng A, 't Mannetje A, Soo S, Douwes J, Ellison-Loschmann L, McLean D and Pearce N. (2011) Prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms in relation to gender, age, and occupational/industrial group. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics. doi:10.1016/j.ergon.2011.06.002.

Oversea Travel

• Naomi Cogger spent two weeks collaborating with the Department of Clinical Services at the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The clinicians I worked with were extremely enthusiastic about developing a research programme and publishing the results in peer review journals. While there they wrote and submitted one paper to the Equine Veterinary Journal.
• Two representatives from EpiCentre (Daan Vink and Joanna McKenzie) participated in a regional meeting organised by FAO in Bangkok. The meeting discussed the organisation and activities of a South East Asia epidemiology consortium, which EpiCentre was invited to contriburte towards.
• Daan Vink : A face-to-face training course was organised in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for seven students from South Asia (1 Afghanistan, 1 Pakistan, 2 India, 1 Bangladesh, 2 Sri Lanka). This was a catch-up course for MVM (Biosecurity) and MPH (Biosecurity) candidates. The course was delivered by Daan Vink from EpiCentre and Barry Borman from the Centre for Public Health Research.

April - June 2011

• The New Zealand Meat Workers union donated $5000 towards the HRC-funded project on leptospirosis diagnostics in humans (Jackie Benschop).
• $240,020 awarded to Farmers leptospirosis Action Group from MAF Sustainable Farming fund for PhD project “Leptospirosis in livestock: farmer awareness and improved profitability” Lead investigator: Cord Heuer. Co-investigators: Peter Wilson and Jackie Benschop.

• 15 April: Leslie Stringer successfully completed her PhD examination. Thesis titled: 'Epidemiological Studies to Inform Control Strategies for Paratuberculosis in Farmed Deer'. Supervised by Peter Wilson and Cord Heuer.
• 15 April: John Alawneh submitted his PhD thesis for examination. Thesis titled: 'Monitoring Liveweight to Optimise Health and Productivity in Pasture Fed Dairy Herds'. Supervised by Mark Stevenson, Norm Williamson, and Nicolas Lopez-Villalobos.

Talks to scientific groups

• 24 -- 25 May: Mark Stevenson and Naomi Cogger delivered a workshop for MAF Biosecurity New Zealand staff "Delimiting Surveillance Strategies for Disease and Pest Incursions.
• 11 May: Jackie Benschop presented a talk titled 'Update on Massey's Leptospirosis Research on Meat-Workers' at the New Zealand Meat-Workers Union Conference, Palmerston North.
• 18 May: Jackie Benschop delivered a workshop for ESR NCBID staff titled 'Outbreak Investigation and Control'.
• 20 May: Daan Vink presented an invited oral presentation at the first International Conference on Animal Health Surveillance in Lyon, France, titled 'Capacity building for integrated surveillance: the 'One Health' for Asia programme'.
• 21 -- 22 June: Eric Neumann delivered a keynote presentation at the South East Asia Veterinary School Association Congress titled 'One Health in Epidemiology', Surabaya, Indonesia.
• 21 June: Masako Wada and Mark Stevenson presented a talk titled 'Animal Health Economics: Farm Level Economic Decision Making' at the New Zealand Veterinary Association Conference, Claudelands Conference Centre, Hamilton.
• 22 June: Mark Stevenson presented a talk titled 'Animal Health Economics: A Review of Animal Health Economic Studies in New Zealand at the New Zealand Veterinary Association Conference, Claudelands Conference Centre, Hamilton.
• 22 June: Mark Stevenson presented a talk titled 'A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Benefits of Monitoring Daily Liveweight in Dairy Cattle at Pasture at the New Zealand Veterinary Association Conference, Claudelands Conference Centre, Hamilton.
• 23 June: Jackie Benschop presented a talk titled "Update on leptospirosis research at the human-animal interface" at the New Zealand Veterinary Association Conference, Claudelands Conference Centre, Hamilton.

Visitors

• 13 -- 15 April: Dirk Pfeiffer, Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology from the Royal Veterinary College, London, UK. On Friday 15 April Dirk gave a seminar titled 'From Massey to RVC London – 11 years of Veterinary Epidemiology in Europe'.
• 1 April -- 31 August: Dr Alberto Alepuz-Palau (Universitat De Barcelona, Spain), working with Mark Stevenson on spatial and spatio-temporal analyses of animal health data.
• 1 April -- 31 August: Mauro  Bauba (Laboratório de Epidemiologia e Bioestatística, Fac. Med. Veterinária e Zootecnia - Universidade de São Paulo, Bazil), working with Mark Stevenson on spatial and spatio-temporal analyses of animal health data.
• 20 April: Dr Mark Bosson (Animal Health Board New Zealand) met with Mark Stevenson to discuss social network analysis of dairy cow movement data.
• 6 May -- 26 May: Edwina Leslie, PhD student from The University of Sydney, working with Naomi Cogger.
• 26 May: Mark Stevenson, Jackie Benschop and Eric Neumann met with Dr Djajadi Gunawan Director of Veterinary Public Health, Directorate-General Animal Health and Livestock Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Indonesia and Professor Dr Hj Mirnawati Sudarwanto Professor of Veterinary Public Health Bogor Agriculture Institute, Indonesia.
• 30 May: Mark Stevenson met with Dr Santanu Bandyopadhyay, Team Leader of the Avian Influenza Programme, Food And Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Hanoi, Vietnam.
• 1 June: Mark Stevenson met with Dr. Hoang Van Nam, Director General, Department of Animal Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Hanoi, Vietnam.

• 20 April: Jackie Benschop with PhD candidate Fang Fang visited and presented a talk to 16 rural Waikato GP practices and community laboratories. This is part of the HRC grant work on leptospirosis diagnostics in humans.
• 15 April: Naomi Cogger visited Professor Mark Burgman at the Australia Centre for Excellence in Risk Analysis at the University of Melbourne.

Papers published

• Long NV, Stevenson MA and O'Leary B (2011) Decision Support Systems in Animal Health. In: Efficient Decision Support Systems: Practice and Challenges – From Current to Future. InTech Open Access Publishers. ISBN 978-953-308-63-9.
• Porphyre T,  McKenzie J, Stevenson MA (2011) Contact patterns as a risk factor for bovine tuberculosis infection in a free-living adult brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula population. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2011.03.014.
• Stevenson MA (2011) Critical appraisal for clinicians. VetScript 24: 10 - 13.
• Hernández-Jover M, Cogger N, Martin PAJ, Schembri N, Holyoake PK, Toribio J-A (2011) Evaluation of post-farm-gate passive surveillance in swine for the detection of foot and mouth disease in Australia  Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 100: 171 - 186.

Reports

• Benschop J, Nokes C (2011) Review of the National Center for Human Statistics Data Brief  No. 53. A report prepared for Regional Public Health New Zealand.
• French N, Leader D, Hazelton M, Marshall J, Benschop J (2011) Development and application of new tools for the analysis of Salmonella surveillance data  identifying the spatial and temporal determinants of raised notifications in New Zealand. A report prepared for the New Zealand Food Safety Agency.
• Nokes C, Benschop J, Beasley M, Foote J, Hepi M, Mackay T (2011) Review of scientific reviews relating to water fluoridation published between January 2000 and July 2010. A report prepared for Regional Public Health New Zealand.

January - March 2011

• Phase 2 of the South Asia Region “One-Health in Asia” grant passed all internal World Bank approval steps and a contract with Massey will be forthcoming. This grant (approximately NZD $5 million) will fund outreach, continued specialised epidemiological training, inter-country communication infrastructure, and information technology resources in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. The work associated with this grant will be shared by EpiCentre and CPHR.

• MVS 118.722: 5 new students enrolled in MVS paper 118.722 (Zul Abdul Rashid, Sameh Ahmed, Webby Chibomba, Lisanne Fermin, and Mary Van Andel).
• MVS 118821: 6 MVS students enrolled in MVS paper 118.821 (Jaimie Frazer, Shenyan Hea, Katharine Mason, Winston Mason, Ruth Pirie, Joanna White).
• Masako Wada (Japan) PhD student working with Mark Stevenson on animal health economics.
• Nelly Marquetoux (France) PhD student working with Cord Heuer on Johne's disease.
• MVM-MPH (Biosecurity): 66 of the 70 students that started the MVM-MPH (Biosecurity) program successfully passed the first four online papers in December 2010 and are now working on their respective public health or veterinary epidemiology papers through to August 2011.

• 28 February: Naomi Cogger gave a talk to members of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney on the use of Bayesian Belief Networks to describe exposure pathways for endemic infectious disease.

• 10 January -- 14 February: Drs Serin Shin and Gil Keon from the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service, Korea to work on risk analysis with Mark Stevenson.
• 21 -- 25 February: Cord Heuer hosted Professor Wesley Johnson from the University of California, Irvine, USA. Professor Johnson gave a seminar on the use of ‘prior’ scientific knowledge in data analyses.

• 14 -- 25 February: Naomi Cogger visited Professor Mark Burgman at the Australia Centre for Excellence in Risk Analysis at the University of Melbourne.

Papers published

• Schuster G, Ebert E, Stevenson MA, Corner R, Johansen C. Application of satellite precipitation data to analyse and model arbovirus activity in the tropics (2011) International Journal of Health Geographics 10, 2011. doi:10.1186/1476-072X-10-8
• Brownlie TS, Weir AM, Tarbotton I, Morton JM, Heuer C, McDougall S. (2011) Reproductive management of dairy herds in New Zealand: Attitudes, priorities and constraints perceived by farmers managing seasonal-calving, pasture-based herds in four regions. New Zealand Veterinary Journal, 59: 28-39