Jonathan Y. Richmond, Ph.D.
Director, Office of Health and Safety
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, GA 30333
adapted from the CDC/NIH 3rd edition of
Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories
Introduction
From the earliest days of microbiological research, laboratorians have recognized that acquiring infections from the agents they manipulated was a recognized occupational hazard. The most commonly-acquired lab infections were caused by bacterial agents; as microbiologists learned to culture animal viruses, they also found ways to become infected with these agents. From the literature reviews of Sulkin and Pike, we also learned that a significant number of these infections were fatal and that most infections were of unknown origin. Exposure to infectious aerosols were implicated in about eighty per cent of the reported infections.
