It’s that exciting time of year again! For World Antimicrobial Awareness Week 2020 (WAAW), the World Health Organisation has selected the slogan “Antimicrobials: Handle with care. United to preserve antimicrobials.” You will notice that we now talk in terms of “antimicrobials” rather than “antibiotics” because we recognise that resistance in organisms other than bacteria (such […]
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Rural recruitment has always been part of the challenge of running a laboratory service across the Southern region for SCL. For example, in mid-2018, SCL Dunstan advertised widely for a full time laboratory worker. There were no suitable NZ educated applicants and so a Philippine qualified Technician, who had been working in Qatar, was appointed […]
Vitamin D tests were originally developed for investigation of rickets, osteomalacia and other metabolic bone disorders. In recent years the number of requests for vitamin D tests has increased dramatically. Most of these requests are unrelated to metabolic bone disease, and have arisen because of reported associations between various disease states (cancers,cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune […]
Electronic ordering of lab tests has been available around the country for some time now, but the uptake from GPs has been relatively low in some regions. With COVID-19 forcing the country into lockdown, and for many GPs – taking them online, e-ordering lab tests to support virtual consults saw significant uptake in the Nelson […]
According to the SDHB, the South enjoyed rapid turnaround of test results compared with many other places. A Covid-19 update included in the agenda for this week’s board meeting outlined how, in the early days of the outbreak, specimens had to be sent out of the district for processing. ‘‘Southern Community Laboratories, however, developed innovative […]
The country’s southernmost region has been one of the hardest hit by COVID-19 to date. Fiona Cassie finds out about the partnership between general practices, the PHO and DHB that got them through.. Read the full article on NZ Doctor (subscription) >>
Reporter Fiona Cassie wanted to know what happens to the thousands of nasal swabs that are sent away for analysis each day. The Southern Community Laboratories experts who answered her questions are clinical microbiologist Arlo Upton, molecular pathology department head Jenny Grant and clinical microbiologist James Ussher Read the full article on NZ Doctor (subscription) […]
Dunedin’s Covid-19 testing capacity has been strengthened by adding an Australian testing system.A team that included staff from the University of Otago microbiology and immunology department and Southern Community Laboratories (SCL), earlier this year rapidly adapted a German test, which detected the first confirmed Dunedin Covid-19 cases in mid-March. Read the full article on Otago […]
Dunedin scientists have swiftly adapted overseas technology to help develop a powerful coronavirus test which this week detected the city’s first two confirmed Covid-19 cases.Prof Miguel Quinones-Mateu, of the University of Otago microbiology and immunology department, said the test had been adapted and developed over the past six weeks, and now delivered results in three […]