Establishment of biosafety level 3 laboratory infrastructure to study with highly pathogen organisms and principles of operation: Review

Abstract

Biosafety Level-3 (BSL-3) labs are specially designed to study or produce the BSL-3 class contagious materials, like Avian influenza, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Bacillus anthracis, which all cause serious or fatal diseases and very substantial economic loss. These labs are optimized to protect personnel working in the laboratories, materials and environment against the risks of contamination. Safety precautions can be defined at three levels: The primary barriers: Mostly include precautions such as standard operational procedures for staff and laboratory area. Secondary barriers: Include precautions for the outer side of the working area. Tertiary barriers: Include "Special Precautions" which are not included in the first and second levels. The main components of these precautions are the standard operational procedures, safe use of equipment and the design criteria of the facility. In this rewiev, the establishment of infrastructural properties of BSL-3 labs and biosafety level-3 animal labs (ABSL-3) which are essential to work safely with the pathogenic organisms; the critical points while determining the technical setup specifications of such laboratories, selection of materials and instruments for the laboratories, necessary trainings to work in a BSL-3 type lab, rules to prepare the standard operational procedures (SOP) of the laboratories, risk analyses and emergency action plans are discussed. © 2014 by Türkiye Klinikleri.