The Mississippi Public Health Laboratory (MPHL) regularly holds Biosafety Preparedness Exercises to evaluate Mississippi hospital and veterinary laboratories. The assessment weighs multiple factors to determine the risk to laboratory workers, the community, or the environment of working with an infectious agent, toxin or other biological hazard.
For the 2024 exercise, laboratories were asked to submit a Biosafety Risk Assessment focusing on any test or platform that the facility had employed during July 2023 through February 2024. The completed risk assessments were submitted to the MPHL.
These exercises assessed each facility's ability and dedication to safely handle unknown, highly infectious agents in its laboratory for a potential real-world outbreak. Each Biosafety Champion has helped strengthen our state's biosafety and biosecurity practices to ensure that we are prepared to evaluate the risk of any unknown biothreat.
The Mississippi Public Health Laboratory wishes to thank the laboratories who participated in the 2024 biosafety preparedness exercise. Congratulations to our Mississippi Biosafety Champion Laboratories!
2024 Biosafety Champions
Facilities participating in the 2024 biosafety exercise include:
- Bolivar Medical Center Laboratory
- Choctaw Regional Medical Center Laboratory
- Field Health System Laboratory
- Franklin County Memorial Hospital Laboratory
- Gulf Coast Veteran’s Healthcare System Laboratory
- G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center Laboratory
- Jasper General Hospital Laboratory
- Magnolia Regional Health Center Laboratory
- Mississippi Veterinary Research and Diagnostic Laboratory
- Ochsner – Rush Outreach Laboratory
- Singing River Health System Laboratory
- University of Mississippi Medical Center Laboratory
