Schedule of EBSA Conference 2023 and Preconference courses

The presentation will outline of the importance of the biosafety and biosecurity community for managing oubreaks. Some components of biorisk management in the outbreak response during some recent outbreaks (e.g. ebola, zika, COVID-19, mpox) will be highlighted.

In this communication the experience gained, problems encountered and lessons learned by the way risk communication during the COVID-19 pandemic was developed and delivered will be disused.

Mpox is an emerging zoonotic infection originating in small mammals in parts of Africa. Imported cases have occurred in Europe over recent years and have been managed in specialist isolation facilities. However, in 2022, a global outbreak occurred mainly amongst the GBMSM community. In order to control and better understand transmission of the virus and series of environmental investigations were carried out to detect the virus on the air, in dust and on surfaces in a variety of environments including domestic settings, isolation rooms, offices and sexual health clinics. The results of these studies will be discussed along with implications for infection control.

The best poster entries will be selected to give a pitch for all conference attendees on their poster.

Best presentation wins the Best EBSA2023 poster prize!

Minimizing energy use is a mandate for most building designers and operators.  This is true for buildings as a whole as well as for individual systems.  For users of Thermal Batch Effluent Decontamination Systems minimizing energy and energy recovery have been largely ignored due to many hurdles in implementation of energy saving technologies.  This presentation discusses a number of options for energy recovery and discusses pro and cons of each approach as well as the implications on system design.  The attendee will gain an understanding of the various philosophies and how best choose a design to meet their particular need.  The presentation is intended for designers, specifiers and users of Batch Thermal Systems.

A modern laboratory is akin to a high-tech automated machine.  Before your last capital investment, you envisioned a future lab driving your science forward at Formula1 speeds.  But after all the costs in real money and interrupted science, you’re still stuck in traffic or waiting for repairs. 

Investments in new construction and modernisation are necessary to keep pace with emerging science, technology, quality, and regulatory demands – but they rarely deliver on the promise. What are the do’s and don’ts that some of the world’s newest facilities follow to realise the full potential of their laboratories? This presentation will discuss how and when to incorporate best practices to get you from Concept to Capability.  We’ll discuss the processes and practices that minimize the roadblocks between “building” and “science”. The attendee will gain an overview risk-based tools for successful capital investments, including CVV, Operational Models, science transitions, and regulatory compliance planning.  The presentation is intended for scientists, operators, compliance officers, owners and anyone that is spending more time fixing rather than using a biocontainment facility.

Environmental virology began with efforts to detect infectious poliovirus in sewage and water more than 50 years ago, and then progressively extended to other known human-infecting viruses using molecular biology approaches [1, 2]. More recently it has become an additional component in global studies of the microbial diversity throughout our planet (such as the Tara Ocean projects [3, 4]). Beyond the studies originally limited to known human-infecting virus, we are now attempting to catalog unknown viruses infecting unknown hosts [5]. The latest developments introduced a temporal dimension, with the investigation of viruses from the distant past, such as those trapped in millennia-old permafrost layers, which I will briefly describe [6-8]. Within the One Health framework many teams are now investigating the viromes of the most remote and pristine areas where very few men had gone before [9]. Worse, under the pretext of anticipating future pandemics, these samples are sometimes subjected to hazardous manipulations [10]. To what extent these environmental investigations should be more closely monitored without renouncing to the scientific knowledge they bring us about the key role of viruses in most ecosystems, deserves a rigorous debate [11].

References

1. Melnick JL. (1947) Poliomyelitis virus in urban sewage in epidemic and nonepidemic times.
   Am. J. Hyg 45: 240-253
2. Metcalf TG, Melnick JL, Estes MK (1995) Environmental virology: from detection of virus in sewage and water by isolation to identification by molecular biology--a trip of over 50 years.
   Annu Rev Microbiol 49: 461-487. doi: 10.1146/annurev.mi.49.100195.002333.
3. Karsenti E, et al. (2011)
   A holistic approach to marine eco-systems biology.
   PLoS Biol. 9(10): e1001177. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001177.
4. Hingamp P, et al. (2013)
   Exploring nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA viruses in Tara Oceans microbial metagenomes.
   ISME J. 7(9): 1678-95. doi: 10.1038/ismej.2013.59.
5. Roux S, Emerson JB. (2022)
   Diversity in the soil virosphere: to infinity and beyond?
   Trends Microbiol. 30(11):1025-1035. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2022.05.003.
6. Legendre M, et al. (2014)
   Thirty-thousand-year-old distant relative of giant icosahedral DNA viruses with a pandoravirus morphology.
   Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 111(11):4274-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320670111.
7. Rigou S, Santini S, Abergel C, Claverie JM, Legendre M. (2022)
   Past and present giant viruses diversity explored through permafrost metagenomics.
   Nat Commun. 13(1):5853. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33633-x.
8. Alempic JM, Lartigue A, Goncharov AE, Grosse G, Strauss J, Tikhonov AN, Fedorov AN, Poirot O, Legendre M, Santini S, Abergel C, Claverie JM. (2022)
   An update on eukaryotic viruses revived from ancient permafrost bioRxiv 2022.11.10.515937; doi: 10.1101/2022.11.10.515937
9. Sikkema RS, Marion P.G. Koopmans MPG. (2021)
   Preparing for Emerging Zoonotic Viruses, Encyclopedia of Virology (4th Edition), 2021: 256-266. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-12-814515-9.00150-8
10. Chen, DY., et al. (2023)
    Spike and nsp6 are key determinants of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron
    BA.1 attenuation. Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05697-2
11. Imperiale MJ, Casadevall A, Goodrum FD, Schultz-Cherry S. (2022)
    Virology in Peril and the Greater Risk To Science.
    J Virol. 15: e0184722. doi: 10.1128/jvi.01847-22.

Arthropod vectors are animals capable of carrying a pathogen that can cause a disease to a susceptible host through their bite. For sure, mosquitoes are among the most well-known arthropod vectors. Still, others like ticks, sand flies, Culicoides, and Simuliidae are as well important vectors of pathogens causing diseases of animals and public health concerns.

Different mechanisms regulate the capability to transmit a pathogen (vector competence), and it can vary from species to species, even among the same species but from different populations.

A clear understanding of the interaction between pathogens (virus, parasite, or bacteria) and vector species performed under laboratory conditions is crucial to define the risk of new epidemics or the onset of diseases in areas where competent vectors are present. Since we are dealing with pathogens and flying arthropods, appropriate infrastructures and procedures are required to perform these studies to prevent the escape of infected arthropods.

In this presentation, an update on the biorisks related to working with infected or exotic arthropod species is given, as well as the role of the focal points at EBSA for the implementation of standard operating procedures, as ambassador for the scientific community, and to rise awareness among animal and public health authorities towards different subject related to biosafety.

Tick-borne diseases (TBD) have a worldwide impact on animal and human health and one of the concerns for zoonotic disease studies. In order to be able to work on the TBDs it is necessary to establish laboratory colonies of the relevant tick species and conduct tick-host animal experiments. Most of the identification and colony rearing studies are done in BSL2 laboratories, however some tick-host studies and agents need to be studied in high containment laboratories because their exotic nature in the countries where they are studied, and some of them posing bioterrorism agent risk. It is essential to develop SOPs for working with ticks and TBDs in these facilities as well as training researchers with these SOP’s. The biggest concern is the accidental release of an infected tick from the laboratory to environment. In order to conduct safe studies with ticks and tick-infested experimental animals, certain modifications must be done in facility, equipment, PPE, ticks and animal handling, storage of ticks, and infestation and housing of animals.

Required modification in facility and laboratory equipment: If an ACL3 section has not been created, a suite within the BSL3 section should be reserved for tick studies. The multi-layer containment used for safe working with ticks consists of storage bottles, humified desiccant, tick chamber and laboratory room. Minimum required equipment and material should be kept in tick room in order to prevent hiding places in incidents. Feeding, inoculation and dissection of ticks should be performed in a non-ventilated glove boxes if possible. Magnifying loupes should be used while counting or handling ticks. Experimental animals infested with ticks should be housed in individually ventilated isolator cages. All work surfaces should be painted white. White adhesive pads should be placed in front of the door and double-sided sticky tapes should be applied around the doors and margins of the animal cages. Parts of mosquito nets should be used to cover the ventilation hoose openings to animal cages.

Personal protective equipment: White, long cuffed regular gown, white and long neck gloves should be used. In BSL4 suit labs white suits should be used. If suit gloves are colored, an extra pair of white gloves should also be don over the suit gloves to ensure easy visualization of ticks.

Tick handling and storage: Especially larvae and nymphal stages should be cooled prior to work by placing the vials on chill table. Studies should be planned with minimum tick individuals and counts in the lab always be documented. Eggs should be divided small portions before hatching and unnecessary parts destroyed. Tick containing vials should have a mesh under the cover. Vials should be kept in plastic desiccators. All vials should be labeled with necessary info.

Animal (mice, rabbits, guinea pigs) infestation with ticks: Infestation capsules are the most secure tick infestation way in high containment labs whereas ear bags for rabbits or whole body infestation for mice can be the options in BSL2. Animals are sedated and capsules are glued on shaved skin to create a delimitated attachment site. Upper end of the capsules are sealed and secured with sticky tape. Stages and numbers of ticks placed in to capsules should be documented. Capsules are checked every day for integrity during infestation.

The IEGBBR is made up of national biosafety and/or biosecurity authorities that have strong oversight systems in place. The purpose of the IEGBBR is to provide a forum for the sharing of knowledge and experience with regard to current human and zoonotic animal pathogen issues. The issues discussed, however, can also intersect with the oversight of non-zoonotic animal and plant pathogens. One of the goals of the IEGBBR is to strengthen international biosafety and biosecurity by sharing expertise and lessons learned from the perspectives of the established regulatory systems with the global community. To do so, the IEGBBR develops reference tools and materials that are relevant to all countries, including developing countries and countries that already have established oversight frameworks. During the current funding term, the IEGBBR is developing a “Model of Standardized Regulatory Practices for Biosafety and Biosecurity Incidents”. Its anticipated completion is in August 2023. The IEGBBR has also initiated the Technical Expertise program, targeting developing regions. Its goal is to provide tailored technical expertise and enable beneficiaries to obtain help in areas of need or to address gaps in their biosafety/biosecurity oversight systems, enabling the strengthening of the national programs and the associated oversight measures.

Website: https://iegbbr.org/

Tools to strengthening biosecurity implementation within organizations working with high-threat pathogens

Due to their nature and characteristics, working in a laboratory with high-threat biological materials coincides with biosafety and biosecurity risks. Biosafety refers to working safely to reduce the risk of exposure and release, whereas biosecurity deals with the prevention of misuse. In general, biosecurity builds upon biosafety principles and procedures with additional security measures.

Biosecurity awareness is of utmost importance to generate a safe and secure biosecurity culture within organizations. By being aware of the importance of biosecurity, both by management and employees, will ensure adequate biorisk management. “A chain is as strong as its weakest link”: not knowing the vulnerabilities your organization is facing, puts your organization at risk for biosecurity-breaches. With that in mind, the Netherlands Biosecurity Office developed several products and web applications with the aim to raise biosecurity awareness and to identify vulnerabilities regarding biosecurity within organizations. Besides an informative film, and gadgets to raise biosecurity awareness, the biosecurity toolkit also includes the ‘Biosecurity Self-scan Toolkit’ and the ‘Vulnerability Scan’. These are online tools to analyse biosecurity vulnerabilities and perform biorisk assessments in an organization dealing with high consequence pathogens. The content of the toolkit will be explained as well as how it can be applied to strengthen biosecurity within facilities working with high-threat pathogens.

M. Schaap, I. Vennis, S. Rutjes, P. Hogervorst, S. Schulpen, M. Boot, M. Schuijff, N. Chung, R. Bleijs, Biosecurity Office, RIVM, Bilthoven, The Netherlands

Biosecurity in livestock production is a combination of many different measures aimed at prevention of introduction and spread of pathogens in a farm. It forms the basis of any disease control program. Both external and internal biosecurity measures are of utmost importance to either prevent introduction of pathogens on a farm and avoid infection spread between animal populations on a farm. Although most of the measures to be implemented are logical and generally easy to apply, it requires a strong discipline to adhere to the measures in the daily practices. Yet, those who do surely see the benefits.

The Biocidal Products Regulation of the European Union (BPR, Regulation (EU) 528/2012) covers placing on the market and subsequent use of biocidal products, which are used to protect humans, animals, materials, or articles against harmful organisms, by the action of the active substances contained in the biocidal product. In order to safeguard workers and the environment, contaminated material must be inactivated before reuse or disposal, so that exposure is avoided. For this purpose, chemical disinfectants are often used. These products fall under the definition of biocides. Biocides act against pathogens and pests but also include genetically modified cells. More specifically, such biocides include ‘disinfectants and algaecides not intended for direct application to humans or animals’ (product type 2, PT2), and ‘products used for veterinary hygiene’ (PT3). For this purpose, only registered and authorized biocides may be used. The result is that many disinfectants, regularly used in scientific or diagnostic activities with pathogens and/or genetically modified organisms, are not allowed to be purchased and/or used according to BPR, although they are proven effective and validated. The EBSA BPR task force was launched in 2020 to address these challenges on the European level. In this breakout session, we give an overview of the steps taken by the EBSA BPR task force and the actions being taken for possible solutions in different European countries.

African swine fever (ASF) virus (genus Asfivirus, family Asfarviridae) has been maintained for hundreds of years in sub-Saharan Africa in latently infected warthogs, bush pigs and giant forest hogs as reservoir with the assistance of soft ticks of the genus Ornithodorus as biological vectors. However, in 2007 it affected domestic pig populations in Georgia (as well as some decades ago in Spain) after consumption of undercooked ship's kitchen scraps. Since then the disease has spread to wild boars and intensively reared domesticated pigs in Eastern European countries, but also in China with huge losses for the agricultural economies of the affected states. The path that followed probably mainly blames the role of man rather than wild boar in the transmission of the disease. Outbreaks of this disease also occurred in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia and Bulgaria. In 2018, the Greek Ministry of Rural Development and Food launched an information campaign for those involved (veterinarians, pig farmers, foresters, hunters, customs officers, etc.) in order to prevent the appearance of this devastating disease in our country as well, which seemed to have an effect if we exclude the momentary appearance of a case in Nigrita Serres on February 2020. Since then a new case in two wild boars appeared after 3 years in the same area, In this work, the ways of transmission of this disease and the points where humans are involved will be presented, and possible methods of limiting it will be discussed. The components of modern pig farming internationally are complex and extend from the location and construction of farms, the microclimate, supplies and movements of animals, personnel and materials, commercial transactions, etc.

The principles of external and internal biosecurity applicable to many infectious diseases of animals will be presented focusing on the problem of this important disease

1. Give an overview of what is considered as prion-like diseases from both Human and Veterinary perspective;
2. Identify Biorisk challenges in working with prions from Diagnostic and Research perspective;
3. Discuss Biorisks in relation to working with these pathogenic agents.

The Biocidal Products Regulation of the European Union (BPR, Regulation (EU) 528/2012) covers placing on the market and subsequent use of biocidal products, which are used to protect humans, animals, materials, or articles against harmful organisms, by the action of the active substances contained in the biocidal product. In order to safeguard workers and the environment, contaminated material must be inactivated before reuse or disposal, so that exposure is avoided. For this purpose, chemical disinfectants are often used. These products fall under the definition of biocides. Biocides act against pathogens and pests but also include genetically modified cells. More specifically, such biocides include ‘disinfectants and algaecides not intended for direct application to humans or animals’ (product type 2, PT2), and ‘products used for veterinary hygiene’ (PT3). For this purpose, only registered and authorized biocides may be used. The result is that many disinfectants, regularly used in scientific or diagnostic activities with pathogens and/or genetically modified organisms, are not allowed to be purchased and/or used according to BPR, although they are proven effective and validated. The EBSA BPR task force was launched in 2020 to address these challenges on the European level. In this breakout session, we give an overview of the steps taken by the EBSA BPR task force and the actions being taken for possible solutions in different European countries.

African swine fever (ASF) virus (genus Asfivirus, family Asfarviridae) has been maintained for hundreds of years in sub-Saharan Africa in latently infected warthogs, bush pigs and giant forest hogs as reservoir with the assistance of soft ticks of the genus Ornithodorus as biological vectors. However, in 2007 it affected domestic pig populations in Georgia (as well as some decades ago in Spain) after consumption of undercooked ship's kitchen scraps. Since then the disease has spread to wild boars and intensively reared domesticated pigs in Eastern European countries, but also in China with huge losses for the agricultural economies of the affected states. The path that followed probably mainly blames the role of man rather than wild boar in the transmission of the disease. Outbreaks of this disease also occurred in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia and Bulgaria. In 2018, the Greek Ministry of Rural Development and Food launched an information campaign for those involved (veterinarians, pig farmers, foresters, hunters, customs officers, etc.) in order to prevent the appearance of this devastating disease in our country as well, which seemed to have an effect if we exclude the momentary appearance of a case in Nigrita Serres on February 2020. Since then a new case in two wild boars appeared after 3 years in the same area, In this work, the ways of transmission of this disease and the points where humans are involved will be presented, and possible methods of limiting it will be discussed. The components of modern pig farming internationally are complex and extend from the location and construction of farms, the microclimate, supplies and movements of animals, personnel and materials, commercial transactions, etc.

The principles of external and internal biosecurity applicable to many infectious diseases of animals will be presented focusing on the problem of this important disease

1. Give an overview of what is considered as prion-like diseases from both Human and Veterinary perspective;
2. Identify Biorisk challenges in working with prions from Diagnostic and Research perspective;
3. Discuss Biorisks in relation to working with these pathogenic agents.

This paper discusses a previously unrecognized contradiction in the design of biosafety level-4 (BSL-4) suit laboratories, also known as maximum or high containment laboratories. For decades, it is suggested that both directional airflow and pressure differentials are essential safety measures to prevent the release of pathogens into the environment and to avoid cross-contamination between laboratory rooms. Despite the absence of an existing evidence-based risk analyses demonstrating increased safety by directional airflow and pressure differentials in BSL-4 laboratories, they were anchored in various national regulations. Currently, the construction and operation of BSL-4 laboratories are subject to rigorous quality and technical requirements including airtight containment. Over time, BSL-4 laboratories evolved to enormously complex technical infrastructures. With the aim to counterbalance this development towards technical simplification while still maintaining maximum safety, we provide a detailed risk analysis by calculating pathogen mitigation in maximum contamination scenarios. The results presented and discussed herein, indicate that both directional airflow or a differential pressure gradient in airtight rooms within a secondary BSL-4 containment do not increase biosafety, and are not necessary. Likewise, reduction of pressure zones from the outside into the secondary containment may also provide sufficient environmental protection. We encourage laboratory design professionals to consider technical simplification and policymakers to adapt corresponding legislation and regulations surrounding directional airflow and pressure differentials for technically airtight BSL-4 laboratories.

Why was the requirement for exit showering replaced with performance-based language in the 2022 version of the WHO Global Action Plan for Poliovirus Containment? Supporting evidence was prepared by Perseus taking a double approach: literature searches on the effectiveness of showering-out procedures and consultation of different types of organisations with relevant experience and challenges. We will highlight the results and show how such information informed the adapted GAPIV requirements.

In this session, we will present data from our empirical work in biosafety and our work exploiting existing data sets to inform biosafety. Overall, we hope this talk will illustrate how relatively simple experiments in biosafety can be conducted to close longstanding data gaps in bio-risk management and also inform reproducibility in the life sciences. We will discuss our methodological framework for studying aerosols generated by laboratory accidents, and present information on the aerosols produced by dropping microtiter plates and tissue culture flasks. Also in the physical sciences, we will present data on the rate that conical centrifuge tubes leak and the frequency that splashes occur when opening microcentrifuge tubes via various opening methods. We will discuss the rate of spills and splashes when pipetting as drawn from experiments using volunteers and blinded samples in clinical laboratories. We will describe factors that influence this accident rate including workload and experience of the researcher. Interestingly, this experiment also sheds light on the ability of the researcher to know when they are making mistakes and take corrective action. We will present data on the rate at which needle sticks can be expected in the laboratory. We will examine how biosafety findings are distributed amongst laboratories in several institutions and what can be learned about the culture of biosafety. We will discuss how knowledge of the frequency and causes of accidents can lead to means to improve reproducibility in the life sciences.