A Tool for Assessment of Animal Health Laboratory Safety and Biosecurity: The Safety Module of the Food and Agriculture Organization's Laboratory Mapping Tool.

Beatrice Mouillé,Youssouf Kabore,Wantanee Kalpravidh,Sharon Hietala,Stuart Blacksell,Filip Claes,Lidewij Wiersma,Gwenaelle Dauphin

doi:10.3390/tropicalmed3010033

Abstract

The Laboratory Management Tool (LMT) is a standardized spreadsheet-based assessment tool developed to help support national, regional, and global efforts to maintain an effective network of animal health and veterinary public health laboratories. The safety and biosecurity module of the LMT (LMT-S) includes 98 measures covering administrative, operational, engineering, and personal protective equipment practices used to provide laboratory safety and biosecurity. Performance aspects of laboratory infrastructure and technical compliance considered fundamental for ensuring that a laboratory is able to appropriately function in a safe and biosecure manner are systematically queried and scored for compliance on a four-point scale providing for a semi-quantitative assessment. Data collected is used to generate graphs and tables mapping levels of compliance with international standards and good practices, as well as for documenting progress over time. The LMT-S was employed by trained auditors in 34 laboratories located in 19 countries between 2015 and 2017. The tool is intended to help standardize animal health laboratory assessments, document compliance with recognized laboratory safety and biosecurity measures, serve as a self-help and training tool, and assist global laboratory development efforts by providing an accurate measurement of laboratory safety and biosecurity at local, national, and regional levels.

Highlights

Veterinary laboratories are an important component of global animal health, as well as public health, through their involvement in disease surveillance, diagnosis, and control
Of the 34 laboratories participating in the pilot use of the Laboratory Mapping Tool (LMT)-S, 17 were located in geopolitical region A and 17 in region B
Results from the initial LMT-Safety Module (LMT-S) assessments indicated that safety and biosecurity procedures and practices were minimally adequate for the risk of procedure(s) being performed, and overall below the performance recommended by internationally-recognized safety and biosecurity guidance documents, including those identified in the Global Health Security Agenda Prevent project (Action Package Prevent 3) launched in 2014, involving approximately 50 partner countries plus contributing international organizations FAO, IAEA, Interpol, Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), and WHO [13]

Summary

Introduction

Veterinary laboratories are an important component of global animal health, as well as public health, through their involvement in disease surveillance, diagnosis, and control. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is committed to building strong and effective veterinary care, disease diagnosis, and disease control to support the food supply infrastructure internationally, in part through assisting veterinary laboratories and their national partners in identifying gaps in veterinary laboratory functionality and in supporting laboratory capacity-building on a global level. In support of this goal, in 2010 the FAO developed a laboratory assessment approach targeting veterinary laboratories. The approach, named the Laboratory Mapping Tool (LMT), promoted the use of standardized laboratory assessments in order to identify and monitor gaps in laboratory capacity and functionality, and to assist decision-makers in better defining the targets and mechanisms for both local and global laboratory capability and capacity-building

Methods

Results

Conclusion