Biosafety can fight spread of infectious diseases

The concepts of biosafety, biosecurity, and biorisk management are new in Bangladesh but they have enormous importance in the present-day world in fighting the spread of infectious diseases and giving safety to laboratory workers, experts said at a seminar yesterday.

Biological agents including bacteria, viruses, fungi and toxins cause infection, allergy, toxicity or other hazards to human health and also pose threats to economic development, social stability and even national security, said Dr Asadulghani, president of Bangladesh Biosafety & Biosecurity Association (BBBA), while presenting his keynote paper.

Biosafety and biosecurity are defined as defences against biorisks, or as the containment principles, technologies and practices to prevent unintentional exposure to pathogens and toxins, or their accidental release and the protection of valuable biological materials within laboratories, to prevent their unauthorised access, loss, theft, misuse, diversion or intentional release.

Dr Asadulghani, also head of Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory, ICDDR,B, said laboratory biosafety could be ensured by different levels of protected labs based on risk of exposure, availabilities of treatment and prevention measures, while biodefence was considered important against biological agent weaponisation, terrorism and harm associated with deliberate release.   

Referring to the recent outbreak of Ebola Viral Disease, Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, director (disease control) at the Directorate General of Health Services, said, “Though we are far away from the origin of EVD, we and the whole world are under threat.”

This type of threat can be faced with biosafety and biosecurity, he added. 

He said natural outbreaks of diseases could pose challenges to global safety and security by undermining national economies, international trade and travel, public health and safety, trust of populace in its own government, leading to fragile state collapse. Biosafety programmes are crucial to control such outbreaks and an overall crisis situation, he added.

The daylong seminar was organised by BBBA at the microbiology department of Dhaka University and attended by local and foreign scientists, teachers and researchers.

Prof AAMS Arefin Siddque, vice chancellor of DU, inaugurated the programme, while Lim Lay Yew, chairman of ESCO Group, Singapore, and Dr M Imdadul Hoque, dean of the biological science faculty of DU, were present.