Biosafety and biosecurity guidelines for health laboratories in Ethiopia

Abstract

The implementation of laboratory biosafety and biosecurity programs is fundamental and crucial for protecting the health workforce, the community, and the environment from exposures to biological hazards. Past and recent sporadic outbreaks of viral infections, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and influenza, among others, have woken the world up to the risks of biological materials and the need for stringent, risk-proof ways of handling them. The urgent need to establish systems and approaches to reduce the risks of biological agents posing health hazards has been heightened by legitimate fears of future episodes of emerging and re-emerging pandemic viruses that can be more cruel, deadly, and devastating to the public's health than those the world has faced to date. Among other scenarios, the ever-increasing threats from the potential use of dangerous pathogens for malicious purposes are fueling global concern. Addressing these concerns and challenges underpins the key objectives and importance of implementing biosafety and biosecurity programs at all health laboratory settings where a wide variety of potentially hazardous biomaterials are tested, stored, shipped, or received, worked with, or disposed of, thus posing real risks to the health and safety of workers, patients, and other clients, as well as precipitating the danger of transient or long-lasting contamination of the environment.