As part of this battle, biosecurity is of vital importance, since it is responsible for preventing risks to health and to the environment from exposure to biological agents that cause disease. Biosafety is the name given to the rules and barriers established to prevent biological risk.
Biosafety and biosecurity ensures that risks associated with research or development of harmful biological agents are minimized, thus protecting the health of humans and animals involved in such activities. This is important to prevent infection or exposure that could endanger their life and health.
Biosafety training ensures that you and your team (or whoever else is involved) are properly handling infectious organisms and hazardous biological materials. This not only keeps those working in the lab safe, it also protects anyone else that comes in contact.
The goal of biosafety is to reduce or eliminate exposure of lab personnel, the community and the environment to potentially infectious or hazardous agents and this is achieved via the principles of containment and risk assessment.
Biosafety’S Role in Pandemic Prevention
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of adhering to biosafety protocol.
As was witnessed with the spread of COVID-19, natural disease outbreaks pose a significant threat to global security, national economies, international trade, national and international travel, public health and safety, education, maternal health, and public trust i.
Should biosafety and biosecurity measures focus on one health aspects?
In the context of the current situation, biosafety and biosecurity measure that focus on One Health aspects of the disease outbreaks and the SARS-CoV-2 spread are of great importance to restrain this pathogen.
What Is Biosafety?
Biosafety is a concept that works hand-in-hand with biosecurity.
It is the implementation of specific practices and procedures, training and safety equipment, appropriate occupational health programs, and healthcare infrastructure to enable a country to safely and effectively work with potentially infectious microorganisms and other biological haza.
Where are Biosafety frameworks implemented?
Biosafety frameworks are implemented in many laboratory settings, including:
academic and teaching laboratories biological research and production laboratories environmental research and analytical laboratories and human and veterinary clinical and diagnostic laboratories.