25 Facts About Ayesha Verrall

Ayesha Jennifer Verrall is a New Zealand politician, infectious-diseases physician and researcher with expertise in tuberculosis and international health.

Ayesha Verrall came to public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic when, after criticising the Government's pandemic response, she was commissioned to audit the contact tracing system.

Ayesha Verrall served as Minister for Food Safety, Minister for Research, Science and Innovation, Minister for Seniors, and Minister of Health in the Sixth Labour Government.

Ayesha Verrall was born in Invercargill to Lathee and Bill Ayesha Verrall.

Ayesha Verrall's mother was born in the Maldives and was the first Maldivian to pass Cambridge examinations in English and study in New Zealand on a Colombo Plan scholarship.

Ayesha Verrall is named after her grandmother, who died when Lathee was two years old.

Ayesha Verrall obtained a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 2004 from the University of Otago Dunedin School of Medicine.

Ayesha Verrall became the president of the Otago University Students' Association in 2001.

In 2018, Ayesha Verrall completed her PhD in tuberculosis epidemiology at the University of Otago, in collaboration with Padjadjaran University in Indonesia and Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

Ayesha Verrall's research investigated the early clearance immune response to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection among Indonesian people who were highly exposed to the bacteria yet remained uninfected.

Ayesha Verrall developed the Innate Factors in Early Clearance of M tuberculosis cohort as part of her dissertation.

Ayesha Verrall taught microbiology to medical students and researched tuberculosis epidemiology, immunology, and host-pathogen interactions.

Ayesha Verrall was an infectious diseases physician at the Capital and Coast District Health Board in Wellington and became an elected member of its board in the 2019 local elections.

Ayesha Verrall stood representing the Labour Party and was appointed as the board's deputy chair.

In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ayesha Verrall called for the government to urgently improve its data on the community spread of COVID-19 by expanding the testing criteria beyond sick people and increasing laboratory testing and contact tracing capabilities to reach 1000 people per day.

Subsequently, Ayesha Verrall was commissioned by the ministry to provide an independent audit of its contact tracing program.

In June 2020, Ayesha Verrall was invited by the World Health Organization to share her audit report as an example of best practice.

Ayesha Verrall was ranked 17th as a list-only candidate, the highest-ranked newcomer, positioned behind Cabinet ministers and the Speaker but ahead of other sitting MPs.

Ayesha Verrall said the COVID-19 pandemic was her "push" to move from academia and medicine into politics.

Ayesha Verrall was appointed as a new minister in the continuing Sixth Labour Government's Cabinet, as Minister for Seniors, Minister for Food Safety, Associate Minister of Health and Associate Minister of Research, Science and Innovation.

Ayesha Verrall became Acting Minister of Conservation in April 2021 when Kiri Allan went on medical leave and Associate Minister for COVID-19 Response in February 2022.

Labour lost the election and in late November 2023 Ayesha Verrall assumed the health, public service and Wellington issues shadow portfolios in the Shadow Cabinet of Chris Hipkins.

On 5 December 2023, Ayesha Verrall was granted retention of the title The Honourable, in recognition of her term as a member of the Executive Council.

Ayesha Verrall is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

The Ayesha Verrall Award, granted by the New Zealand Medical Student Journal, is named after her, to honour her efforts to form and secure funding for the journal in 2003.