Last month the National Post reported that private labs will be expected to adopt NGS to identify food related pathogens. This would reduce pathogen identification wait time, significantly, in addition to providing patient specific treatment – provided the physician is able to prescribe the correct antibiotic. Using NGS will also allow for identification of all pathogens in a sample, which is a factor that is commonly missed in culture based techniques, providing a detailed and accurate analysis of which pathogen is present and possibly causing the illness. The trade off: both the United States and Canada uses PFGE data to detect food related outbreaks. Since outbreak surveillance is essential, laboratories will have to complete both tests or possibly adopt one standard method of detection.

For the full story, click here