Voluntary Incident Reporting: Laboratory Incident Notification Canada

While the Human Pathogen and Toxins Act (the Act) and Regulations set out mandatory reporting obligations for specific types of laboratory incidents, the Public Health Agency of Canada (the Agency) also provides both licensed and unlicensed facilities with a way to voluntarily report incidents that are not mandated under the Act and Regulations. Such incidents include, but are not limited to:

• incidents involving Risk Group 1 pathogens
• incidents involving primary samples, such as:
• blood
• serum
• saliva
• milk
• urine
• feces
• incidents occurring in facilities exempt from licence requirements
• near misses

Voluntary incident reporting enables a more complete understanding of biosafety risks and supports the enhancement of safety protocols across facilities in Canada.

Since the program began in late-2015, there have been 101 incidents reported voluntarily to Laboratory Incident Notification Canada . Some trends stand out from the voluntary reports sent to Laboratory Incident Notification Canada:

• Most reports came from containment level 2 labs (93.1%). Of those, most were in the hospital sector (55.4%). Microbiology was the most common activity being performed at the time of the incident (49.5%).
• The reports were relatively evenly divided between exposure (55.4%) and non-exposure events (44.6%).
• Most of the exposures were from primary samples (32.1%) and were procedure related (23.9%) or personal protective equipment and sharps-related incidents (17.9% each).
• Most non-exposure reports were inadvertent production or possession of pathogens (80.0%).

The data gathered from voluntary reports sheds light on the varying situations that can arise in facilities and shares important information about incidents that wouldn’t be otherwise reviewed.

Voluntary reports also play an important role to expand Laboratory Incident Notification Canada’s dataset and inform biosafety recommendations, training and resources. It is a key element of the Agency’s commitment to biosafety and biosecurity.

• Licensed facilities can submit their voluntary reports through the Biosecurity Portal.
• For guidance on submitting a report, unlicensed facilities can email biosafety.biosecurite@phac-aspc.gc.ca .
• For printable resources that summarize the exposure incident information that reporters will be asked to gather, please visit Laboratory Incident Notification Canada Reporting Resources .