AAALAC International Revised Position Statement: Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1

The Council on Accreditation has revised its position statement on Cercopithecine herpesvirus 1 to reflect more current references and to note that institutions that use tissues or body fluids collected from macaques must implement appropriate safety precautions to protect workers. The revised position statement is as follows:

In addition to using the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (NRC 1996) as its primary document, AAALAC International also uses Occupational Health and Safety in the Care and Use of Research Animals (NRC 1997); "Recommendations for Prevention of and Therapy for Exposure to B Virus (Cercopithecine Herpesvirus 1)," Cohen, et. al. (2002), Clinical Infectious Diseases 35:1191-1203; and the CDC/NIH Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories, 5th Edition (2007) as resources for assessing the appropriateness of measures to protect personnel and prevent transmission of CHV1.
As recommended in the designated references above, all macaques should be presumed to be harboring CHV1 and handled accordingly. Each AAALAC International accredited institution housing macaques, or utilizing tissues or body fluids collected from macaques, must have a protection and prevention program for CHV1 as a part of its occupational health and safety program.
The basic elements of the program include standard operating procedures and training for handling macaques and their tissues and dealing with potential exposures; risk assessment and education of all personnel having potential contact with macaques; the presence of supplies for immediate and appropriate patient first aid and animal specimen collection; maintenance of a bite, scratch, and incident log; the required use of appropriate protective equipment, including that necessary for hand and arm as well as for eye and mucous membrane protection; and access to occupational health and safety staff and medical care staff knowledgeable of both exposure risk and acute disease.

Any interested person can submit to the AAALAC International Executive Office (accredit{at}aaalac.org) written comments, data, views, or arguments in opposition to or support of the proposed position statement within 30 days of its publication.