Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity最新文献

Availability of mobile laboratories can facilitate rapid on-spot detection of pathogens, monitor its presence in certain populations and inform health authorities to take immediate remedial measures. Currently available biosafety and biosecurity guidelines and policies may not completely articulate the increased demand to manage mobile units in infectious disease outbreaks in remote parts of the country for rapid diagnosis, and also allows research and epidemiological study take place appropriately.

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the current limitations and develop and implement biosafety and biosecurity guidelines as well as the protocols for operations, security, and response plan of mobile biosafety level 2 laboratories and their deployment.

Keeping in view the sensitivity of it, a comprehensive plan was developed to address it in view of Global Health Security framework. Biosafety and biosecurity protocols were developed including Risk Assessment Tool (RAT) fitting the needs and strengthen the diagnostic and epidemiological capacity in the field covering remote parts of country to fill the gaps observed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently the biosafety and biosecurity best practices guidelines and biosecurity policy and regulations are directed mostly towards static laboratories. A biosafety and biosecurity manual developed to adopt and meet the requirements for MBSL 2. For acute health infectious threats including the COVID-19 outbreak and other epidemics, rapid diagnosis can curb and mitigate the problem before it gets out of its boundaries creating significant health risks for the public and economy. The deployment of mobile laboratories will certainly help in curbing these catastrophes.

Routine microbial inactivation procedures used in microbiology laboratories must be verified. In this study, the efficacy of surface disinfection using 70% Isopropanol, 0.45% Presept, and 1% Virkon was tested against 24 bacterial strains commonly handled in aquaculture microbiology laboratories. Isopropanol was ineffective against Nocardia asteroides NCIMB 1290, while Virkon was not effective against Aeromonas eucrenophila NCIMB 74 or Pediococcus acidilacti R52037.

The Nipah virus (NiV) infection is one of the newly emerging deadly zoonotic diseases which carries a significant weightage of mortality among its victims. Due to the relatively recent history of its emergence and only a few known outbreaks, we cannot predict but foresee its potential to create havoc, which can be far more dreadful than the current ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Here we have tried to depict the fatal potential of the virus and the increased propensity with which it can spread to rest of the world.

The emergence and prevalence of multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MRAB) poses a huge challenge to clinical treatment. To investigate the genetic and epidemiologic characteristics of MRAB in Liaocheng, China, and to explore potential resistance mechanisms, 56 MRAB strains were collected from the clinical departments of seven hospitals in Liaocheng between 2020 and 2022. Molecular typing, antimicrobial resistance patterns, and epidemiological characteristics were determined by genome sequencing and comparative genome analysis. Sequence type (ST) 540 was the most prevalent ST of the 56 MRAB in Liaocheng, and most strains (92.86%) were grouped into CC92. Core genome multilocus sequence typing subdivided the strains according to the number of allelic differences and could distinguish different outbreaks caused by ST540 isolates in the hospitals. All the isolates harbored bla_OXA-23 and bla_ADC-25, and at least 92.86% of the isolates were resistant to 10 antibiotics. The major MRAB epidemic clone detected in Liaocheng was ST540, which was different from the results reported in other regions in China. Furthermore, several inter-hospital transmissions of ST540 isolates were observed. The findings highlight the urgent need for effective nosocomial infection control measures and the continuous surveillance of ST540 MRAB in Liaocheng.

Ebola virus (EBOV) is classified as a category A pathogen as it causes viral hemorrhagic fever, one of the most-deadly virus-related diseases. Since its discovery in 1976, EBOV has caused a number of global public health incidents, which have posed a serious threat to both humans and non-human primates. Thus, numerous preventive vaccine studies are underway, including research on inactivated vaccines, DNA vaccines, subunit vaccines, virus-like particles, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus replicon particles, and several viral vector vaccines. The vesicular stomatitis virus-based vaccine Ervebo was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the European Union, and several other vaccines have also been proven to confer potent protection in non-human primates against EBOV lethal challenge. This review provides a brief background of EBOV, with a focus on the epidemiology, available animal models, and advances in preventive approaches for EBOV infection.

Synthetic biology is an emerging multidisciplinary field that aims to design and construct new biological systems not found in nature. Whereas synthetic biology may yield tremendous benefits, it may also pose substantial risks to human health and the environment that must be addressed. In this paper, we examined the environmental risks associated with synthetic biology, including changes to or depletion of the environment, competition with native species, horizontal gene transfer, pathogenicity or toxicity, bioterrorism, and laboratory biosecurity. We highlight three approaches for assessing environmental risks in synthetic biology: solution-focused risk assessment, Bayesian networks, and network of networks for sustainable capacity building. An ethical governance framework is proposed to facilitate innovation while minimising risks. This framework emphasises the precautionary principle and balancing stakeholder interests prior to project development and commercialisation. Overall, we underscore the importance and urgency of assessing and managing the environmental risks of synthetic biology to ensure its safe and ethical development and application.

Background

The One Health concept (OHC) seeks to improve the health of plants, animals, and humans because improving animal and plant health will increase the capacity for improving human health. Many risks such as plant and animal biotechnology applications have the potential to generate new diseases that can be transmitted to humans. In this way, the health of humans, animals, and plants is interrelated and depends on one another. However, it has been difficult to apply the OHC in some countries, such as those in the Middle East. The absence of financial support in the region is a major hindrance to applying this concept in the region. The application of the OHC requires the support of specialists who can advocate the government for support in launching OHC-related projects. Here, we discuss the OHC in the context of antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic diseases, and biosafety/biosecurity, which are important public health issues. Furthermore, we describe the current status of the OHC in the Middle East and recent research conducted related to this concept. There has been recent international solidarity in the application of the OHC to reduce risks that threaten the health of organisms. Several countries jointly launched the Global Health Security Agenda in 2014 with the aim of realizing a world that is free of infectious disease-related health risks. However, no previous review articles have examined the applications of the OHC in the Middle East region. This article discusses the OHC in terms of its needs and current applications in the Middle East.

Methodology

The following keywords were used in the search: “One Health,” “Middle East,” “medicinal plants,” “viruses,” “rabies,” “MERS,” and “antimicrobial resistance.” Related papers were obtained by searching for these keywords using available search engines, such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and Google search, as well as international organization websites.

Conclusion

The concept of One Health is relatively new and has not been applied in most countries, possibly because the value of this concept for improving human health is not well understood. The key principle defining this concept and its importance is the interdependency of plants, animals, and human health. By applying the OHC, humans can benefit from healthy plants and animals by enhancing their growing conditions, medications, and environments. This would in turn improve general human health by allowing the safe extraction of therapeutics and food resources.

Orthopoxviruses (OPXVs) belong to a group of nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses. Human pathogenic OPXVs (hpOPXVs) include at least five viruses, among which smallpox virus and monkeypox virus are the most dangerous viral pathogens. Both viruses are classified as category-one human infectious pathogens in China. Although smallpox was globally eradicated in the 1980 s, it is still a top biosecurity threat owing to the possibility of either being leaked to the outside world from a laboratory or being weaponized by terrorists. Beginning in early May 2022, a sudden outbreak of monkeypox was concurrently reported in more than 100 disparate geographical areas, representing a public health emergency of international concern, as declared by the World Health Organization (WHO). In this review, we present the reasons for hpOPXVs such as monkeypox virus presenting a potential threat to public health. We then systematically review the historical and recent development of vaccines and drugs against smallpox and monkeypox. In the final section, we highlight the importance of viromics studies as an integral part of a forward defense strategy to eliminate the potential threat to public health from emerging or re-emerging hpOPXVs and their variants.

Aerosol transmission is an important disease transmission route and has been especially pertinent to hospital and biosafety laboratories during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The thermal resistance of airborne SARS-CoV-2 is lower than that of Bacillus subtilis spores, which are often used to test the effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogen disinfection methods. Herein, we propose a new method to test the disinfection ability of a flowing air disinfector (a digital electromagnetic induction air heater) using B. subtilis spores. The study provides an alternative air disinfection test method. The new test system combined an aerosol generator and a respiratory filter designed in-house and could effectively recover spores on the filter membrane at the air outlet after passing through the flowing air disinfector. The total number of bacterial spores used in the test was within the range of 5 × 10⁵–5 × 10⁶ colony-forming units (CFUs) specified in the technical standard for disinfection. The calculation was based on the calculation method in Air Disinfection Effect Appraisal Test in Technical Standard for Disinfection (2002 Edition). At an air speed of 3.5 m/s, we used a digital electromagnetic induction air heater to disinfect flowing air containing 4.100 × 10⁶ CFUs of B. subtilis spores and determined that the minimum disinfection temperature was 350 °C for a killing rate of 99.99%. At 400 °C, additional experiments using higher spore concentrations (4.700 × 10⁶ ± 1.871 × 10⁵ CFU) and a higher airspeed (4 m/s) showed that the killing rate remained>99.99%. B. subtilis spores, as a biological indicator for testing the efficiency of dry-heat sterilization, were killed by the high temperatures used in this system. The proposed method used to test the flowing air disinfector is simple, stable, and effective. This study provides a reference for the development of test systems that can assess the disinfection ability of flowing air disinfectors.