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Adel Hussein Elduma. Assessment of biosafety precautions in Khartoum state diagnostic laboratories, Sudan. The Pan African Medical Journal. 2012;11:19 Key words: Biosafety, Diagnostic laboratories, assessment, Sudan Permanent link: http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/content/article/11/19/full Received: 18/07/2011 - Accepted: 17/12/2011 - Published: 03/02/2012 © Adel Hussein Elduma et al. The Pan African Medical Journal - ISSN 1937-8688. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Assessment of biosafety precautions in Khartoum state diagnostic laboratories, Sudan
Adel Hussein Elduma1,&
1National Public Health Laboratory, Ministry of Health, Khartoum, Sudan
&Corresponding author
Adel Hussein Elduma, National Public Health Laboratory, Ministry of Health, P.O.BOX 287, Sudan
This study was conducted to evaluate the biosafety precautions that applied by diagnostic laboratories in Khartoum state, 2009.
A total number of 190 laboratories were surveyed about their compliance with standard biosafety precautions. These laboratories included 51 (27%) laboratories from government, 75 (39%) from private sectors and 64 (34%) laboratories belong to organization providing health care services.
The study found that 32 (16.8%) of laboratories appointed biosafety officers. Only, ten (5.2%) participated in training about response to fire emergency, and 28 (14.7%) reported the laboratory accident occurred during work. 45 (23.7%) laboratories had a written standard operation procedures (SOPs), and 35 (18.4%) had written procedures for the lean-up of spills. Moreover, biosafety cabinet was found in 11 (5.8%) laboratories, autoclave in 28 (14.7%) and incinerator in only two (1.1%) laboratories. Sharp disposable containers were found in 84 (44.2%). Fire alarm system was found in 2 (1.1%) laboratories, fire extinguisher in 39 (20.5%) laboratories, and fire emergency exit found in 14 (7.4%) laboratories. Furthermore, 19 (10%) laboratories had a hepatitis B virus vaccination programme, 5 (6.2%) applied BCG vaccine, and 2 (1.1%0) vaccinated the staff against influenza.
The study concluded that the standards biosafety precautions adopted by the diagnostic laboratories in Khartoum state was very low. Further, the laboratory personnel awareness towards biosafety principles implementation was very low too.
