Biological risk accidents
The handling of biological agents can cause accidents and, consequently, toxicity, infection, allergy or other damage that can affect the health of people, other living beings or the environment.
In order to prevent, avoid or reduce as far as possible accidents and incidents of this kind, it is essential that people working with biological agents are aware of the safety rules to be followed during work in the laboratory. For general guidelines, you can consult the section General safety standards for laboratories on the OSSMA website. Apart from these general guidelines, it is important to expand the information with the particularities of the activities that are carried out in each laboratory or work space. It is necessary to ask the person in charge and get information.
The most common accidents that can cause exposure or transmission of biological agents are caused by:
- Inhalation of aerosols due to inadequate working practices or malfunctioning of equipment or installations.
- Punctures and cuts during the manipulation of sharp or pointed utensils (needles, scissors, scalpels), by bites or scratches from infected animals, etc.
- Ingestion of contaminated material or suspected contaminated material, mainly during the pipetting of biological fluids by mouth (forbidden practice), due to lack of personal hygiene, eating and drinking in the workplace, etc.
- Contact of the skin or mucous membranes with contaminated material or suspected to be contaminated due to splashes or spills during the normal course of work, accidental breakage of containers, etc.
- Accidental dissemination of biological agents in the work environment due to power cuts, inadequate functioning of equipment or installations, fires or intrusion/vandalism.
It is important to have in place, develop and keep up-to-date procedures for action in the event of a biological emergency that cover all possible sources of damage or risk situations. It is also necessary to inform and train research staff sufficiently, adequately and regularly so that these procedures are well integrated into the research groups and that action is taken quickly and efficiently in case of need.
Further information: