Thinking outside the box: biosafety's role in protecting non-laboratory workers from exposure to infectious disease.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Emery RJ ; Patlovich SJ ; Rios J
• Description:
  The global response to the 2015 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa necessitated close working relationships among a set of professions that routinely interacts with infectious agents, but often in different venues: biosafety, infection prevention, and public health. For example, as infected patients were transported internationally to specialized clinical sites for enhanced supportive care, infection prevention professionals focused their efforts on protecting the patients and healthcare workers. Biosafety professionals provided expertise on important concepts adapted from the laboratory setting to supplement the protection of these patients and healthcare workers, such as the safe use of enhanced personnel protective equipment (PPE), the methodical removal of this PPE, containment, disinfection and decontamination protocols, and so forth. They also focused on protecting lab workers, ensuring containment and safe transport of patient samples, and the proper management of contaminated waste materials. Public health professionals provided crucial support in the identification of case contacts and in monitoring potentially exposed individuals, and helped to educate the public to reduce misconceptions and fears about the disease. But the experience also revealed that in outbreak situations, many individuals in occupations beyond the laboratory and healthcare setting have the potential to be exposed to infectious agents. Examples include transportation workers, housekeepers, waste handlers, law enforcement, and morticians, just to name a few. The need to train non-healthcare worker populations on how to safely conduct their work in conditions where the risk for potential exposure to an infectious disease exists became readily apparent, representing an opportunity for the biosafety profession to think "outside the box" of traditional laboratory risk assessment and containment. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recently leveraged resources within its Worker Training Program (WTP) to address the training needs of workers outside of the healthcare industry but in professions with possible exposure to the agents that cause infectious diseases of public health significance. A primary function of the NIEHS WTP is to fund extramural activities that provide high-quality and innovative health and safety training to workers, particularly those responsible for the proper management of hazardous materials. To quickly respond to this emerging training need, the NIEHS WTP allowed current grantees to redirect funds to train personnel in healthcare and other industries to prevent or mitigate potential exposures to EVD. In April 2015, the NIEHS WTP, with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published a funding opportunity to supplement the training activities of current grantees. The objective of the supplemental funding was to conduct worker-based training to prevent and reduce the exposure of emergency first responders and other workers who are at risk of contacting the agents that cause infectious diseases of public health significance. Late this summer the NIEHS WTP published a new funding opportunity with the goal of establishing several large training centers. As a result of these opportunities, the Biosafety and Infectious Disease Training Initiative (BIDTI) was formed. ... [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communicable Diseases Disinfectants Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Staff Development
• Keywords:
  Biosafety; Ebola virus disease; Training; Safety education; Infection prevention; Patient handling; Personal protective equipment; PPE; Decontamination; Disinfectants; Safety measures
• ISSN:
  1535-6760
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 6 ; Texas
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  128-129
• Volume:
  20
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20064881
• Citation:
  Appl Biosafety 2015 Sep; 20(3):128-129
• Contact Point Address:
  Scott J. Patlovich, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas
• Email:
  scott.j.patlovich@uth.tmc.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Applied Biosafety
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:1dd44a995ea51ea6038ee10c37981dd90aa4ae37085cb9016e8d3d161f46f08eaa4592d6b93fafea8dc3024820b4fec8f8a9b51a6cec16b17f58673eee9d2350
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/249262/cdc_249262_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 70.14 KB ]