Biosafety in Handling of Pathogenic Microorganisms in Laboratories

The handling of pathogenic organisms should always be done with utmost care. If pathogens are treated without adequate understanding of their pathogenic potential, however, problems may result. Recently, the use of pathogenic microorganisms is not confined to studies on infectious diseases, because of an increase of interest for the physiological activity of the pathogenic factors such as bacterial toxins in the field other than pathogenic microbiology. The use of such physiologically active agents is expected to grow more, and biohazards due to the use of such organisms without knowledge of infectious microbiology is feared. Although the same techniques are generally used in handling of both pathogenic and nonpathogenic organisms, additional caution is called for the former. The National Institute of Health (NIH) of Japan established the “Rules for Biosafety Control of Pathogenic Organisms” in 1988 and renewed in 1992. Pathogenic microorganisms were divided into 4 biosafety levels. The present paper deals with the problems on biosafety in handling of pathogenic organisms with special interest on the rules of NIH, Japan.