Asia’s First BIO-Safety Level –IV Laboratory to the Nation

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad dedicated to the Nation the Asia’s First Bio-Safety Level-IV Laboratory established by ICMR with support from Department of Science & Technology at Pune today. 

Lab marks the end of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of NIVNational Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune has done tremendous work on Research and Management of infectious agents including viruses, Pune and starting of the 60th year of its glorious existence

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

Biosafety level 1

This level is suitable for work involving well-characterized agents not known to consistently cause disease in healthy adult humans, and of minimal potential hazard to laboratory personnel and the environment.

Biosafety level 2

This level is similar to Biosafety Level 1 and is suitable for work involving agents of moderate potential hazard to personnel and the environment.^[7] It includes various bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as C. difficile, most Chlamydiae, hepatitis A, B, and C,orthopoxviruses (other than smallpox), influenza A, Lyme disease, Salmonella, mumps, measles, ^[8] scrapie, MRSA, and VRSA. BSL-2 differs from BSL-1 in that:

Biosafety level 3

Researcher at US Centers for Disease Control, Bethesda, Maryland, working with influenza virus in biosafety level 3 conditions, with respirator and fume hood (BSC).

This level is applicable to clinical, diagnostic, teaching, research, or production facilities in which work is done with indigenous or exotic agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal disease after inhalation.^[7] It includes various bacteria, parasites and viruses that can cause severe to fatal disease in humans but for which treatments exist, such as Leishmania donovani,Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Bacillus anthracis, Chlamydia psittaci, West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Eastern equine encephalitis virus, SARS coronavirus, Salmonella typhi, Coxiella burnetii, Rift Valley fever virus, Rickettsia rickettsii, andyellow fever virus.

Biosafety level 4

This level is required for work with dangerous and exotic agents that pose a high individual risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections, agents which cause severe to fatal disease in humans for which vaccines or other treatments are not available, such asBolivian and Argentine hemorrhagic fevers, Marburg virus, Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, smallpox, and various other hemorrhagic diseases.