Managing biorisks in containment labs

The voluntary Laboratory Biorisk Management Standard, CWA 15793, was adopted internationally in 2011. Dr J Craig Reed* looks at the voluntary management systems approach to containment lab operations.

Biological laboratories that handle, manipulate or store biological agents or toxins need to be containment laboratories. Typically they perform activities such as clinical diagnostics, biological production or fundamental research. The term “containment” is used to describe the combination of laboratory practices, safety equipment and facility infrastructure necessary to reduce or eliminate the exposure of laboratory staff, other individuals or the environment to the hazardous or infectious materials present in the facility.

There are four levels of containment, called “biological safety levels” – BSL 1–4, each distinguished by different combinations of practices, equipment and infrastructure.

There exist several broadly applicable guidelines for the safe conduct of work within each of the four biosafety levels. These guidelines are published by the World Health Organization,¹ jointly by the US National Institutes of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,² and by the Public Health Agency of Canada.³

These guidelines are based on internationally accepted best practices and are predicated on the performance of a risk assessment to guide the selection of practices, equipment and facilities most appropriate to prevent laboratory-associated infections or accidental release of hazardous materials from the containment environment.

Since their original inception, these guidelines have been instrumental in improving containment laboratory biosafety and biosecurity (“biorisk”). In fact, they are so widely endorsed and applied that many countries have adopted them outright, adapted them to meet their needs, or used them as the framework to create their own country-specific guidelines.⁴