Biosafety and biosecurity in the era of biotechnology: The Middle East region

Abstract

Biotechnology became a paradigm-shifting science among all subfields of biology. The benefits of biotechnology have reached many practical fields, whether human health, animal, and/or agricultural. However, wherever there is a biotechnology practice, there is an associated biohazard with it, and its negative impact may reach all living entities including humans. Therefore, the cooperation of the leading institutions in this field has culminated in creating the concepts and applications of biosafety and biosecurity. The countries of the Middle East are considered biotechnology-practicing and have shown a clear acceptance to this field. But unfortunately, the Middle East region is one that is facing the most multi-challenges, which would constitute real and noticeable concern at the local and international levels. Such challenges represented by wars and armed conflicts, deteriorating economic conditions, the large number of refugees, and the spread of many epidemics. Thus, limiting the region's ability to deal with the surrounding biological hazards and struggling the way to the one health concept. Therefore, this article aims to shed light on the activities of the Middle East countries in the field of biotechnology and to address potential biological threats, whether natural such as the spread of viruses, or intentional such as biological attacks and bioterrorism. The article also shows the capacity of the countries of the region in the field of biosafety and biosecurity based on available information. Accordingly, some countries are lacking the required level of preparedness to face potential biological threats. Multi-institutional and international cooperation between the concerned countries will significantly enhance the capacity of the region in biosafety and biosecurity to meet the level of biological risk.

Search methodology: wide range of related keywords (based on the section) combined with the name of the region, or one country individually have been searched using available search engines and databases such as google scholar and PubMed. After scanning the content of the found results, irrelevant articles have been excluded. Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4, Fig. 6, Fig. 7 were created by biorender.com.