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Notice to Readers Availability of CDC-NIH Biosafety Manual

The CDC-National Institutes of Health (NIH) publication, Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories is now available. The publication describes standard and special microbiologic practices, safety equipment, and facilities that constitute biosafety levels 1-4, which are recommended when working with infectious disease agents in various laboratory settings, e.g., clinical, public health, research, or industry. These recommendations are advisory; as such, they are intended to provide a voluntary guide or code of practice, as well as a goal for upgrading current operations and practices. This publication may also be of use in the construction of new microbiologic or biomedical laboratory facilities or in the renovation of existing facilities.

Laboratory activities with infectious agents are categorized into one of four "Biosafety Levels," depending on the assessed infection risks of laboratory personnel conducting manipulations of infectious materials or cultures typical of those performed in microbiology laboratories.

Agent summary statements, citing published or documented cases of laboratory-associated infections, known and potential laboratory hazards, and recommended precautions, are provided for a variety of indigenous and exotic agents that are known or high-potential infection risks.

The appendices describe biologic safety cabinets and their performance characteristics, immunoprophylaxis, requirements for importation and interstate shipment of human pathogens and related materials and provide a list of animal pathogens whose importation, possession, or use is restricted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The manual is available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, Stock No. 0170230016-1, Price: $4.00, and the National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, Virginia 22161, Stock No. PB84-206879, Price: $13.00 paper, $4.50 microfiche.

Disclaimer   All MMWR HTML documents published before January 1993 are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices.

**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.

Page converted: 08/05/98

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