Facility
CSCHAH is a state-of-the-art, 332,766 square foot complex. Built to exceed national and international standards, CSCHAH maintains its high level of excellence through ongoing maintenance and regular upgrades. The complex is built as a series of program-specific blocks interconnected by an area dedicated to common elements for both departments such as the library, cafeteria, and theatre.
CSCHAH houses laboratories to manage any type of infectious organism from the most common to the most exotic. Containment Level 2 (CL2) laboratories are the same as what can be found at a hospital or doctor’s office; 60.8% of CSCHAH lab space is dedicated to level 2. Containment Level 3 involves specific engineering controls and protocols to ensure the safety of lab staff, the public and the environment; 35.5% of CSCHAH lab space is CL3 space, the majority of which is dedicated to animal pathogens. Although the facility is thought of as a “Level 4 facility,” only 3.7% of lab space is used for CL4. Level 4, with its special construction and biosafety suits, is necessary to work with the most serious of pathogens including Ebola, Nipah, and Marburg.
Following the SARS outbreak in 2003, lessons learned resulted in a number of changes to public health in Canada. Among those were the creation of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the construction of a high-tech operations centre at CSCHAH. This operations centre is the hub of the National Microbiology Laboratory when there is an outbreak or a deployment of personnel off-site. It is equipped with three separate phone systems, can videoconference with 38 participants at a time, and can connect via satellite to remote locations around the world. Virtually all staff at NML are trained in the Incident Command System and are able to jump into action at a moment’s notice if there is a public health event of some type.
A three-story expansion to the building was completed in 2011. Funded by the Government of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the expanded and renovated areas include specimen receiving, shipping and receiving, bio-repository, media preparation, office, and meeting space.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Science Centre For Human And Animal Health
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