CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP) is providing targeted biorisk management training to laboratory leaders across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
Through its R-BMT project, ACDP offers two training courses – a two-month ‘Introduction to Biorisk Management’ short course and a year-long ‘Biorisk Management Leadership’ course. Both are a mix of online and face-to-face training, with the in-person component taking place at ACDP’s state-of-the-art laboratory facilities in Geelong, Australia.
These trainings are building participants’ skills in being able to effectively identify, assess, control and evaluate laboratories’ biosafety and biosecurity risks. They are also promoting the region’s adoption of international standards for biorisk management, including ISO 35001. Participants are personnel from the region’s human, animal and wildlife laboratories.
R-BMT is also developing a community of biorisk practitioners in the region, facilitating collaborations, networks and exchanges between laboratories. This is to ensure that learnings, knowledge exchange and best practice continue to be fostered and shared, even after project completion.
The project has also created at least 10 training modules to be self-guided online resources, available to anyone around the world.