Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, cyberattacks, genetic engineering, and amateur-led biology experiments could all pose threats to a country, according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) updated guidance on lab biosecurity.

The guidance aims to help national regulatory bodies and other institutions “establish or strengthen frameworks for handling high-consequence pathogens”.

It features a comprehensive set of rules, best practices, and recommendations for managing laboratory biosecurity risks and procedures at laboratory, institutional, and national levels. 

The guidance needed to be updated as “rapid technological developments and advances in methods manipulating biological material in the past decade have redefined the biological threat landscapes,” according to the guidance’s authors. 

The WHO identified biosafety and biosecurity awareness as one of member states’ “weakest core capacities” after a review in 2022.

This year’s World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on ‘Strengthening laboratory biological risk management’ which calls on member states to enhance laboratory biosafety “by including essential elements of biological risk mitigation and management within their national laboratory biosafety and laboratory biosecurity strategies, policies, programmes, and mechanisms”.

It also called on the WHO to guide member states, particularly on how to deal with “high-consequence biological agents, that would, in case of release or exposure, cause significant harm or potentially catastrophic consequences”.

New technologies, institutional monitoring, and risk assessment methods

Biosecurity aims to prevent “intentional or accidental unauthorized access to, and loss, theft, misuse, diversion or release or even weaponization” of biological material, but also equipment, information, or technology, according to the guide.

Developed in consultation with the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Biosafety (TAG-B) and other stakeholders, the lab biosecurity guidance covers threats to lab biosecurity and methods of managing them. 

It describes emerging technologies that could present a threat to lab security. Next to the well-known disinformation, AI technologies, or genetic engineering, it also puts into focus other potentially risky domains: amateur-led biology experiments or making high-consequence research publically available.

The guide also offers a review of risk control measures, including staff screening and training, auditing, and cybersecurity, as well as a step-by-step guide to developing risk assessment procedures.

It also proposes setting up national and international institutions tasked with approving and overseeing research involving biohazards.

Cyberattacks affect South Africa, UK labs

There has been a  72% increase in data breaches between 2021 and 2023, highlighting the importance of resilient laboratory systems. 

In the past month, for example, both the UK and South African laboratory services have suffered from cyberattacks affecting patients’ test results.

The British National Health Service suffered from a hacker attack in early June, setting back the waiting time for blood test results by up to six months, The Guardian reported.

In late June, the South African National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) was hacked causing a near-paralysis of the public healthcare system as no test results were available.

“We recognise the magnitude of the situation and the concerns it may generate,” said South Africa’s NHLS, in a Daily Maverick report. 

“It has been established that sections of our system have been deleted, including in our backup server and this will require rebuilding the affected parts. Unfortunately, this will take time,” the organisation’s representatives added.

Image Credits: WHO.