Past EBSA courses

From minor lab mishaps to large accidents, biosafety professionals have a pivotal role in minimizing unwanted effects of biological agents when normal biosafety or biosecurity operational controls fail. The course introduces participants to emergency management and its key components (preparedness, response, contingency, crisis management, recovery and investigation). 

Recent breaches of biosafety and biosecurity have emphasised that management failure is normally the root cause of accidents and incidents with biological agents and toxins. 

Effective communication, persuasion, motivation in internal and external communication

Unlike decontamination, and disinfection where it is intended to damage and kill biological material there are situations where the material is valuable and needs to be taken from containment for further processing in a lower containment environment while retaining its important biological integrity/function/structures/elements but removing or reducing its hazard.

This advanced and highly interactive course on design and construction of high containment facilities takes advantage of the unique opportunity to "look behind the walls" of a brand new BSL3+ laboratory facility to explore and discuss containment concepts as well as a number of technical options that may reveal critical focal points for effective containment.

A lack of competence has contributed to a number of major accidents and has been identified as a key underlying cause of incidents in biocontainment facilities.

Organizations are required to ensure that procedures for the safe and secure transport of biological materials are established and maintained in accordance with legal requirements for the transport of dangerous goods.