Laboratory Biosafety Status of Researchers in Korea

동남보건대 임상병리과, 2 연세대학교 시스템생물학과This study examined the status of the laboratory biosafety of researchers in Korea during 03 Jan 2017∼25 Mar 2017.Questionnaires were given out to 500 researchers working with pathogens in the laboratory of universities and institutes.According to the results, the respondents showed a high level of awareness but not compliance on the overall biosafety rules and regulations.Regarding the Biosafety facility level, 279 (55.8%) of respondents answered "know" and 221 (44.2%) of respondents answered "no".Despite the insufficient safety equipment and biosafety plans, researchers believed that appropriate safety measures could protect the workers and that their laboratories are safe.In a study involving biosafety education, 80% of the researchers had been trained in laboratory safety and 20% had never received safety education.The need for biosafety education was 66% and the satisfaction rate of education was 46%.These results suggest that the researchers already had experience in biosafety training, but they believed that continuing education is necessary.In addition, there were opinions that the most important thing to improve the biosafety status is to strengthen the training program and education system.In conclusion, it is necessary to develop a better training system for laboratory biosafety regarding the exposure risks.