Health Policy

COVID-19 vaccination rates in rural areas in New Zealand are significantly lower than in urban areas, an analysis of data by University of Otago researchers reveals. Associate Professor Garry Nixon and his team from the...

New Zealand’s largest licenced medicinal cannabis company, Helius Therapeutics, has signed an agreement with Auckland University of Technology (AUT). It will see Helius working with AUT academics and doctoral students, researching and developing advanced medicinal cannabis products. The announcement follows...

Pharmac has funded upadacitinib tablets as an alternative treatment for New Zealanders with severe rheumatoid arthritis, who are impacted by the tocilizumab stock shortage. “In New Zealand, about 400 people currently use Pharmac-funded tocilizumab for...

Pharmac is working hard to limit the impact on over one million Kiwis who currently take funded API Consumer Brands (API) medicines, following their announcement that they are leaving the New Zealand market. API announced...

Stigma and discrimination against people with mental distress or illness is still very much a problem and people’s negative view of those with a mental illness often comes from a lack of understanding. People...

Pharmac is pleased to confirm that there will be no change in primidone tablets, a treatment used for the management of seizures and epilepsy. In June Pharmac put out a consultation on the supply of an...

When it comes to reducing the country’s carbon emissions, most of us will be looking to the energy and transport sectors, or to agriculture. But Dr Jesse Gale, a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University...

New Zealand’s over 3,500 practising pharmacists need to urgently familiarise themselves with medicinal cannabis. Patient enquiries and demand are set to surge when Kiwi-made products come onto the market later this year, says one...

People using two different inhalers for common chronic lung diseases are more than 50 per cent more likely to have a heart attack than those on just one, new University of Otago-led research reveals. Inhaled...

Richard Edwards, Louise Marsh, Lindsay Robertson, Frederieke Petrović-van der Deen, Nick Wilson, and Janet Hoek* discuss the arguments for and against one of the proposals included in the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan Discussion Document that...