[Biohazards in research laboratories]. / Rischio biologico nei laboratori di ricerca.

ABSTRACT

SUMMARY: Objectives. To deal with biohazards in research laboratories (RL), identify exposure features, types and incidence of laboratory-acquired infections/diseases (LAI), and prevention strategies. Methods. Literature search and appraisal, non-systematic, last 40 years; legislation, guidelines and good practices evaluation. Results. Biohazards are relevant in RL, in various biomedical, agri-food and industrials sectors, with a variety of LAI (especially viruses and bacteria), modes of exposure and transmission; LAI decrease after preventive measures, vaccinations and clinical treatments; LAI underestimation, due to underreporting and subclinical LAI; need to implement and comply with well-known and available technical and scientific guidelines, good medical and laboratory practices; need for specific health education and training; lack of reporting and epidemiologic surveillance systems, with consequent limited data on risk assessment and effectiveness of preventive interventions. Conclusions. The roles of the occupational physician must be underlined, especially for risk assessment, health and clinicepidemiologic surveillance, with the need to monitor seconeffectiveness of preventive interventions, particularly for biosafety and biosecurity levels in RL. It should be useful to increase capacity of epidemiologic surveillance for LAI, through networking or dedicated websites, in order to collect and analyze accidents, injuries, infections, or adverse events occurred to workers in RL.