{"id":627123,"date":"2026-10-11T07:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627123\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T07:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:24:21","slug":"researcher-calls-for-a-maori-specific-strategy-to-eliminate-tuberculosis-te-ao-maori-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/627123\/","title":{"rendered":"Researcher calls for a M\u0101ori-specific strategy to eliminate tuberculosis \u2013 Te Ao M\u0101ori News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">I whakaputahia tuatahia t\u0113nei atikara e <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teaonews.co.nz\/2026\/10\/11\/researcher-calls-for-a-maori-specific-strategy-to-eliminate-tuberculosis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.teaonews.co.nz\/2026\/10\/11\/researcher-calls-for-a-maori-specific-strategy-to-eliminate-tuberculosis\/\">RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Researchers say New Zealand needs a M\u0101ori-specific strategy to eliminate tuberculosis, or TB, after a review found the current approach is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/565118\/nz-s-vaccination-rates-among-lowest-among-high-income-countries-study\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">failing to adequately control the disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The review, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, looked at 17 M\u0101ori people diagnosed with pulmonary TB in Waikato between 2018 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It found TB rates among M\u0101ori were more than five times higher than among New Zealand-born Europeans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Researcher Dr Nina Scott said tuberculosis had continued circulating in M\u0101ori communities because New Zealand had never done enough to control it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">She said historical efforts to tackle the disease focused on the non-M\u0101ori population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Dr Nina Scott.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Supplied \/ Hei \u0100huru M\u014dwai<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe government didn\u2019t make a really big effort to control TB for M\u0101ori, and it still hasn\u2019t made enough of an effort to control TB for M\u0101ori.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Dr Scott said the current system also had significant gaps in contact tracing, diagnosis and support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cThe way that public health teams are resourced currently is they don\u2019t actually have the capacity to trace as many of the contacts as need to be traced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The review found most of the contacts traced were household contacts, with few people outside the household identified and screened for TB infection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Dr Scott said the health system was fragmented.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWell, it\u2019s a disjointed system, so people can go to their GP and GPs don\u2019t see many cases of TB, so they may take a while to get diagnosed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The researchers suggested a M\u0101ori-specific elimination strategy was essential if TB was to be eliminated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cSo having community workers who can go out and work with communities to do the contact tracing and engage with whanau in ways that are culturally safe to ensure that people are confident in sharing their information and getting tested and getting treated,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">N\u014d RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I whakaputahia tuatahia t\u0113nei atikara e RNZ Researchers say New Zealand needs a M\u0101ori-specific strategy to eliminate tuberculosis,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,23753,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-627123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-maori","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}