Laboratory Incident Notification Canada Data 2020

Laboratory work involving biological agents poses an inherent risk of exposure to personnel and the community. Both exposure and non-exposure laboratory incidents are reported to Laboratory Incident Notification Canada, along with information regarding the affected persons. Laboratory Incident Notification Canada is a nationally mandated surveillance system that gathers real time data from reports submitted by licensed laboratories describing laboratory incidents involving human pathogens and toxins.

Laboratory Incident Notification Canada produces annual reports that describe laboratory incidents involving exposures in Canada and the individuals affected by them. The 2020 Laboratory Incident Notification Canada annual report marks the program’s fifth year of operation.

In 2020, Human Pathogens and Toxins Act licence holders reported 42 exposure incidents involving 57 individuals with no laboratory-acquired infections. Among these individuals:

•         most worked as technicians or technologists (63.2%)
•         the common education level was a technical or trades college diploma (42.1%)
•         most exposures occurred through inhalation (56.1%) or sharps-related incidents (15.8%)

The most commonly cited root causes of the 42 exposure incidents were issues related to:

•         standard operating procedures (27.0%)
•         human interactions (23.6%)

Microbiology research was the most common laboratory activity leading to exposure incidents (52.4%), followed by in vivo animal research (11.9%).

Among the 42 biological agents implicated in incidents, most were non-security-sensitive biological agents (88.1%) and human Risk Group 2 agents (54.8%). Risk Group 3 agents accounted for 43% of exposure incidents, with the most common agents being Blastomyces (ajellomyces) dermatitidis (16.7%) and SARS-CoV-2 (9.5%).

The annual incident exposure rate was 4.2 incidents per 100 active licences in 2020, which was less than that reported in 2019 (6.0 per 100 active licences). This decrease may be due to reduced laboratory activities because of stay at home orders and other public health measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic.