Quality Management and Animal Welfare as Culture of Care for Animal Experiments under Biosafety Level-3, taking COVID-19 as a Practical Example

Abstract

Since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic, a tremendous amount of work has been done by scientists to understand the pathogenesis of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). Several animal models have been reported to be useful for the development and testing of vaccines, antivirals, or therapeutics. These in vivo experiments have to be performed at high containment biosafety level (BSL)-3. Thus, an appropriate biosafety, facility and data management as well as high standard of animal welfare, thorough study design, and staff training combined with an overall research transparency and open communication need to be implemented to achieve high quality reproducible research. Such an approach combined with the well-known 3R principle (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement) and the 3S principle (Good Science, Good Sense, and Good Sensibilities) can contribute to culture of care in scientific research. The perspective reviews the key points of optimized biosafety, data, quality and animal welfare management in high risk biosafety-settings to conduct animal experiments with infectious pathogens in the context of a culture of care.