May 27, 2022

HSP Publishes Paper on International Biorisk Management Mentorship Project

Earlier this month, HSP and international partners published a paper in the Health Security Journal detailing methodology used to implement an international mentorship project bringing together Pakistani and Philippine partners to strengthen institutional biorisk management. The project methodology was developed in 2019 when Health Security Partners and the Pakistan Biological Safety Association developed a biorisk manual writing project in partnership with experts from the BioRisk Association of the Philippines (BRAP2015, Inc). HSP assisted individuals from 13 institutions to develop biorisk manuals in order to institutionalize biosafety and biosecurity best practices. Participants attended an in-person training hosted by HSP, followed by ten months of virtual mentorship from a team of subject matter experts.

The project strengthened international biorisk management partnerships by bringing together biosafety associations from Pakistan and Asia to share training programs and experiences to improve biosafety and biosecurity capacity. This effort can be used as an example of how a program established and delivered in one resource-limited country can be shared and implemented in another country through collaborative efforts amongst biosafety associations. The journal article paves the way for the mentorship model to be replicated in other regions of the world to strengthen biorisk management globally.

The paper is titled “A Mentorship Program to Develop Biorisk Manuals for Laboratories in Pakistan”, and may be found online at: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/apb.2022.0007.