What are the best practices for international biosafety and biosecurity collaboration?

1 Why collaborate?

International biosafety and biosecurity collaboration can bring a wide range of benefits, such as sharing knowledge, expertise, and resources to improve laboratory safety, enhancing global health security, fostering trust and mutual understanding among different stakeholders, and promoting ethical responsibility in the use and management of biological materials and data. All of these benefits can help ensure that laboratories are equipped with the right capacity, quality, and safety standards to prepare for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and biological threats.

2 How to collaborate?

International biosafety and biosecurity collaboration can take many forms, such as creating bilateral or multilateral agreements to facilitate information exchange, participating in joint research projects to build technical skills, adopting common standards to harmonize policies and procedures, and implementing quality assurance systems to monitor and evaluate biosafety and biosecurity performance. These activities can help ensure the safety and security of biological materials around the world.

3 What to consider?

International biosafety and biosecurity collaboration can also present some challenges, such as dealing with different cultural, political, and regulatory contexts and expectations, respecting the sovereignty, ownership, and confidentiality of biological materials and data, balancing the benefits and risks of sharing or transferring biological materials and data, and addressing the potential dual-use or misuse of biological materials and data for malicious purposes. All of these issues must be taken into consideration when engaging in international collaboration.

4 What are the resources?

Various resources are available to support international biosafety and biosecurity collaboration, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) Biosafety Manual for guidance on the safe handling and containment of biological agents. Additionally, the International Health Regulations (IHR) are legally binding rules for reporting and responding to public health emergencies of international concern. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a multilateral treaty that prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of biological weapons. Furthermore, the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) is a voluntary initiative that works to strengthen countries' capacities to prevent, detect, and respond to biological threats.