Biosafety and biosecurity approaches to restrain/contain and counter SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic: a rapid-review

Abstract

Emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases pose significant public health risks that are continuously haunting human civilization in the past several decades. Such emerging pathogens should be considered as a high threat to humans, animals, and environmental health. The year 2020 was welcomed by another significant virus from family Coronaviridae called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that caused the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The disease was first reported in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Within a short time, this disease attained the status of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Presently, COVID-19 has spread to more than 150 countries, therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) called it a pandemic. The Chinese government, along with WHO, other health agencies, and many nations, are monitoring the current situation closely to analyze the impact of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 on humans, animals, and environmental health. In the context of the current situation, biosafety and biosecurity measure that focus on One Health aspects of the disease outbreaks and the SARS-CoV-2 spread are of great importance to restrain this pathogen. Along with these efforts, standard precaution and control measures should also be taken at personal and community level to prevent the spreading of any contagion diseases, including COVID-19. Researchers are putting their very high efforts to develop suitable vaccines and therapeutics/drugs to combat COVID-19. This review aims to highlight the importance of biosafety, biosecurity, One Health approach, and focusing on recent developments and the ways forward to prevent and control COVID-19 in a useful way.

An Overview of SARS-CoV-2 and Animal Infection

“…The spread of the emerging SARS-CoV-2 can be controlled through rapid laboratory diagnosis, proper isolation, quarantine measures, developing effective vaccines and therapeutics (18,109,113,114). In addition to surveillance of susceptible animals in close contact to humans, zoo animals, and wildlife animal species to highlight their role as an intermediate host or virus carrier (33,61,113,115). It is crucial to establish an international cooperation sharing pathogen sequence libraries and updated databases to facilitate efforts in disease diagnosis and vaccine development (107).…”

SARS-CoV-2 jumping the species barrier: Zoonotic lessons from SARS, MERS and recent advances to combat this pandemic virus

“…Being a zoonotic disease with still unknown intermediate host, undisclosed features of a novel viral pathogen, unclear modes of transmission and ecological aspects, less explored pathogenesis and substantial morbidity and considerable mortality, the safety of all is a matter of great concern, and thus the involvement of various authorities was sought since the inception of disease [ 26 , 31 , 192 , 193 ]. The first time the need for One Health concept has risen to a level that authorities in various countries implemented coordinated approaches between medical, veterinary, public health, wildlife, food safety, environmental departments and so on [ [193] , [194] , [195] ].…”

SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19: Salient Facts and Strategies to Combat Ongoing Pandemic

“…To avoid air-borne route of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, social distancing of 6 feet / 2 meters or more from an infected person along with following personal biosafety measures including wearing face masks and hand washings are required [42][43][44] . Small particles loaded with virus may diffuse of up to 10 m distance from source of infection, which is of high concerns in spreading this virus dominantly by air-borne route 45 .…”

“…In addition to a very severe global health concerns it also led to very high social and economic instability and huge panic and fear to the public 1,2 . In order to attempt to stop it from rapidly spreading, many countries followed locked down, halted their social and business activities, causing significant damages to their economy, GDP and share markets [3][4][5][6] .…”