Improving Preventive (Anti-Epidemic) Measures to Reduce Biorisks while Training to Handle PBA of Pathogenicity Groups I–II

Work with particularly dangerous pathogens is associated with occupational risks (the likelihood of manmade accidents, laboratory infection of workers) and requires the acquisition and improvement of knowledge, skills, and abilities in the safe performance of manipulations. One of the basic components of the biosafety system in training specialists is a set of regulated preventive (anti-epidemic) measures to reduce biorisk and promptly detect infection: medical examinations, vaccination and observation (upon indications), testing knowledge of biosafety rules, daily medical examination (interviewing, examination, thermometry). Gradual reduction, since 1990, in the practice hours of professional retraining of workers, from six to three months, while attaining the training objective – reliable and safe professional activity – necessitates increasing the intensity of development of skills and abilities in safe work and, accordingly, additional measures to reduce biorisk when working with pathogens for course participants who initially do not have professional skills and abilities. The aim of this study is to improve the set of preventive (anti-epidemic) measures to reduce the risk of man-made accidents and laboratory infections when training in safe work with pathogenic biological agents of groups I–II (PBA). The analysis of legislative, regulatory and methodological documents, by-laws, information and patent search in the field of ensuring biosafety of work with PBA and additional professional education has been carried out. A list of additional preventive (anti-epidemic) measures to the regulated set of measures to ensure biosafety has been proposed, training tools to reduce biorisk in practical classes have been developed: five training sets of strains of particularly dangerous bacteria and algorithms for their safe use; a set of standard operational microbiological procedures; methods of personalized assessment of professionally important qualities and individual model of safe behavior, levels of occupational health, preparedness, reliability of professional activity and risk of their decrement in a trainee.

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