News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Novartis's new cell-culture based influenza vaccine factory in North Carolina has begun making a prepandemic H5N1 flu vaccine and is ready to start producing vaccines for a real pandemic when needed, the company and federal health officials announced yesterday.

The facility in Holly Springs, N.C., billed as the first of its kind in the United States, was dedicated yesterday after a long testing process.

(CIDRAP News) – New surveillance data in Europe show a steep rise in the percentage of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumonia, a drug-resistant issue seen as a growing threat in the United States as well.

(CIDRAP News) – Producers of sprouts should add more food safety steps throughout the production chain to lower the risk of the kind of contamination that triggered a widespread Escherichia coli outbreak in Europe earlier this year, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said in a report released yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided to ban six non-O157 strains of Escherichia coli in ground beef starting next March, according to unofficial reports, a move that pleases food safety groups but frustrates some in the meat industry.