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David Murdoch

Co-leader of The Infection Group
Co-director of One Health Aotearoa
Vice-Chancellor Designate

MB ChB, MD (Otago), MSc (Lond), DTM&H (Liv), FRACP, FRCPA, FFSc(RCPA)

Email david.murdoch@otago.ac.nz
Tel +64 3 556 7791

Current roles

Professor David Murdoch is the co-leader of The Infection Group, the co-director of One Health Aotearoa, a Senior Associate in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and a clinical microbiologist at Canterbury Health Laboratories.

Professor Murdoch served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Otago from February 2022 to March 2023.

Research interests

David's main research interests are the epidemiology, diagnosis and prevention of respiratory tract infections, pneumococcal disease, legionellosis, bloodstream infections, and the role of vitamin D in infectious diseases.

He has a particular interest in the microbial aetiology of pneumonia, and is the Laboratory Director of the Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) project which is focused on determining the causes of severe pneumonia in young children from developing countries. David has ongoing projects based in nine countries in Africa and Asia.

Publications

Jolliffe, D. A., Camargo, Jr, C. A., Sluyter, J. D., Aglipay, M., Aloia, J. F., Bergman, P., … Murdoch, D. R., … Martineau, A. R. (2025). Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory infections: Systematic review and meta-analysis of stratified aggregate data. Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1016/s2213-8587(24)00348-6 Journal - Research Article

Shaw, D., Torreblanca, R. A., Amin-Chowdhury, Z., Bautista, A., Bennett, D., Broughton, K., … Murdoch, D., … Brueggemann, A. B. (2024). The importance of microbiology reference laboratories and adequate funding for infectious disease surveillance. Lancet Digital Health. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1016/S2589-7500(24)00241-3 Journal - Research Other

Straub, C., Taylor, W., French, N. P., Murdoch, D. R., Priest, P., Anderson, T., & Scott, P. (2024). Zoonotic transmission of asymptomatic carriage Staphylococcus aureus on dairy farms in Canterbury, New Zealand. Microbial Genomics, 10, 001318. doi: 10.1099/mgen.0.001318 Journal - Research Article

Miyakawa, R., Zhang, H., Brooks, W. A., Prosperi, C., Baggett, H. C., Feikin, D. R., … Murdoch, D. R., … Knoll, M. D. (2024). Epidemiology of human metapneumovirus among children with severe or very severe pneumonia in high pneumonia burden settings: The PERCH study experience. Clinical Microbiology & Infection. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1016/j.cmi.2024.10.023 Journal - Research Article

Murdoch, D. R., & Bloomfield, A. R. (2024). Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response: Are we better off now than pre-COVID? New Zealand Medical Journal/Te ara tika o te hauora hapori, 137(1604), 9-12. Retrieved from https://nzmj.org.nz/ Journal - Research Other

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