Kenya will begin rolling out a routine malaria immunization for children younger than 2 in eight of its 47 counties. Pilot immunization programs have also been started in Ghana and Malawi.

The UK has partnered with US, Israeli and Chinese experts to conduct research on infectious diseases' evolution and transmission and will donate $10.2 million for the joint research project. The project will be led by the UK Research and Innovation's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and will look at interactions between infectious diseases and humans, wildlife and domesticated plants and animals.

Florida received a proposal from British firm Oxitec to test its biotech Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a breed that normally transmits deadly diseases such as dengue and Zika, by releasing them in the Florida Keys to propagate with local mosquitoes. Oxitec's biotech mosquitoes are sterile and have been successfully tested in Jacobina, Brazil.

BioNTech of Germany has submitted documents for its planned Nasdaq initial public offering and expects to raise almost $100 million, an amount much lower than analysts estimated. The funds will support future preclinical and clinical programs for cancer indications, which include chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, messenger RNA drugs, T-cell receptors and others, as well as the expansion of its laboratories and manufacturing plants.

The Jiangsu Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group and Atomwise have partnered to design and discover possible treatments for up to 11 unnamed target proteins for oncologic and other therapeutic areas, a deal valued up to $1.5 billion. Atomwise uses artificial intelligence technology to help determine the binding capability of small molecules to a target protein.

European regulators have granted CE mark approval to LumaCyte's Radiance single-cell analysis instrument. The device uses laser force cytology technology to measure optical and fluidic forces within a microfluidic channel to analyze each cell's intrinsic cellular properties.

AABB will host an eCast, "HOT TOPIC: Acinetobacter Contamination in Apheresis Platelets -- A Review of Recent Cases" on Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. In this program, speakers will review four cases of septic transfusion reactions from apheresis platelets contaminated with Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumanni (and also Staphylococcus saprophyticus) which were recently reported in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. A description of each case, including the patient's clinical course and investigation performed, will be presented by one of the Blood Center physicians involved in the investigation. A speaker from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will also review the role the CDC played in the investigation including whole genome sequencing performed on the implicated organisms.