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New regulations on lab safety kick off
Updated: 2004-11-29 01:23
A new set of regulations that took effect on Saturday prohibit labs from
experimenting on risky pathogenic microbes without approval.
The Chinese cabinet issued the new rules after an incident in March in which
two people were infected by the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus
at a lab of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
China will grade its pathogenic microbe labs in four levels. The first and
second grades are labs prohibited from conducting experiments on risky
pathogenic microbes that can cause severe diseases in human and animals and
spread easily.
The third and fourth grades require specific permission from health and
veterinary authorities.
Approval will also be required for experiments on risky pathogenic microbes
and report results when the research ends.
Earlier this year, the Diarrhea Virus Laboratory under the Institute of Virus
Diseases of the centre carried out experiments with the SARS virus without
proper qualification and facilities to contain the virus.
An investigation showed lab researchers used an untested method to kill the
SARS virus and did not test the result of the process.
This was later confirmed as the source of this years' SARS outbreak.
The 2004 recurrence of SARS caused nine people to fall ill and one death.
The director and deputy director of the centre resigned. The head and deputy
head of the centre's Institute of Virus Diseases as well as director of the lab
were dismissed in July.
According to the new regulations, the head of the institution that owns a lab
and head of the lab will be held accountable for any similar mistakes.
The biosafety regulations are the first and most authoritative in China, said
an official with the Ministry of Health on Saturday.
"The ministries of health,agriculture and science and technology all issued
relevant documents and rules on this aspect but no standardized one had been
issued," he said, "We are working on an plan to implement the regulations."
Gao Qiang, executive vice-minister of health, said early July that
strengthening lab biosafety is an important and urgent task for the national
health system.
"The March outbreak rang the alarm for the nation's lab safety management,"
Gao said. "The necessary punishment for some officials is to help consolidate
the responsibility awareness for relevant officials and establish a
responsibility system for major accidents."
The regulations also ask medical labs to set up special departments or
personnel to supervise the facilities. The labs must report to the superior
administration if an accident takes place, the regulations said.
The first outbreak of SARS happened in early spring 2003 and a total of 5,327
cases were reported that year in 24 provincial areas on the mainland. A total of
350 people died of the disease.
Early this month the Ministry of Health issued a plan to prevent SARS and
bird flu this winter and next spring early, promising to send out experts within
24 hours after the first suspected case is found.
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