Question

10. Why aren’t there more Level 3 laboratories in the U.S? (You may need to use the Internet to research this question.)

Answer 1

Answer:

A biosafety level: is a set of biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed laboratory facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) to the highest at level 4 (BSL-4).

Biosafety level 3

• Biosafety level 3 is appropriate for work involving microbes which can cause serious and potentially lethal disease via the inhalation route.

• This type of work can be done in clinical, diagnostic, teaching, research, or production facilities

• Biosafety level 3 is commonly used for research and diagnostic work involving various microbes which can be transmitted by aerosols and/or cause severe diseases.

• These include pathogens like Francisella tularensis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Chlamydia psittaci, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Eastern equine encephalitis virus, SARS coronavirus, Coxiella burnetii, Rift Valley fever virus, Rickettsia rickettsii, several species of Brucella, chikungunya, yellow fever virus, and West Nile virus.

Biosafety level 4

• Biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) is the highest level of biosafety precautions.

• and is appropriate for work with agents that could easily be aerosol-transmitted within the laboratory and cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which there are no available vaccines or treatments

• BSL-4 laboratories are generally set up to be either cabinet laboratories or protective suit laboratories.

• Biosafety level 4 laboratories are used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens which can cause fatal disease.

• These include a number of viruses known to cause viral hemorrhagic fever such as Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.

• Other pathogens handled at BSL-4 include Hendra virus, Nipah virus, and some Flaviviruses.

• This level is also used for work with Variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox,

In U.S. there are no more level 3 laboratories   1.It is impossible to obtain a full accounting of lab accidents or lab-acquired infections because there is no universal, mandatory requirement for reporting them and no system to analyze trends to assess emerging biosafety risks and disseminate lessons learned on a regular basis                                                   

2. From 2006 through 2013, labs notified federal regulators of about 1,500 incidents with select agent pathogens and, in more than 800 cases

3. High-profile lab accidents last year with anthrax, Ebola and bird flu

4.Sudies are also being done on a wide range of bioterrorism pathogens that are less known to the public, such as the agents that cause exotic diseases like tularemia, Q fever and melioidosis.

5. Still others are focused on pathogens that causes serious economic risks to agriculture, such as foot-and-mouth disease, brucellosis and "mad cow" disease.

6.The research at BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs — which use special equipment, negative air pressure and numerous safety and security procedures — seeks to better understand how organisms cause disease and ways to protect against them.

7. It's the kind of work that the public doesn't give much thought to until people with Ebola arrive on planes in the United States from an outbreak in Africa, or the current avian flu outbreak forces farmers to kill millions of chickens raising the specter of higher egg prices.