Laboratory Incident Notification Canada Data 2021

The annual Laboratory Incident Notification Canada report describes laboratory exposure incidents in Canada, as well as the individuals affected by these incidents. This year's report describes the incidents that occurred in 2021, the sixth year of Laboratory Incident Notification Canada's operation. We will publish the full report in fall 2022 in the Canadian Communicable Disease Report.

In 2021, licence holders reported 43 exposure incidents involving 72 individuals. 3 of these incidents resulted in suspected or confirmed laboratory-acquired infections. Of the 72 exposed individuals, most worked as:

•         technicians or technologists (70.8%)
•         students (13.9%)
•         researchers (6.9%)

The most common education levels among them were:

•         Technical or trades diploma (65.3%)
•         Bachelor's (13.9%)
•         Master's (5.6%)
•         MD/PhD (4.2%)

Most were exposed through inhalation (52.8%) or sharps-related incidents (16.7%), which is similar to 2020.

Among the 43 exposure incidents, common root causes were issues relating to human interactions (67.4%) or standard operating procedures (46.5%).

Microbiological research was the most common laboratory activity leading to exposure incidents (41.9%), followed by in vivo animal research (27.9%).

Among the 44 pathogens and toxins involved, most exposure incidents involved non-security-sensitive biological agents (86.4%), or human Risk Group 2 pathogens (61.4%). This was similar to 2020 results.

The most common implicated Risk Group 2 agents were Neisseria meningitides and Streptococcus agalacitiae (6.8% each). The most common human Risk Group 3 agent was SARS-CoV-2 (13.6%).

The 2021 annual incident exposure rate was 4.2 incidents per 100 active licenses. This was similar to 2020, which saw 3.9 incidents per 100 active licenses.