5 December 2013
The meeting was a collaboration among the Polish Academy of Sciences, the IAP Biosecurity Working Group, and the Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, under the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. It was also co-organized with Global Health and Security Consultants (GHSC).
Applying the risk management in the laboratory means identifying, assessing and managing of all potential risks in the work place by any laboratory manager, researcher and personnel before beginning of the work. Every time a new experiment is to be carried out, a risk assessment must be performed and documented by the researcher in consultation with the supervisor. This was the reason for organizing a half-day workshop on Biological Risk Assessment for microbiologists, epidemiologists and public health experts working in the Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. The workshop included a welcome and introductory remark by Col. Dr Janusz Kocik, the director of the Institute followed by a detailed presentation on objectives, and process of risk assessment by Dr Ali Mohammadi, President of GHSC. Then the participants were divided into three groups and worked on three public health risk case studies. The group coordinators presented their evaluation of the cases followed by discussion by all participants. At the end the participants received a certificate of attendance from Dr Mohammadi.