Biobanking has been playing a crucial role in the development of new vaccines, drugs, biotechnology, and therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of a wide range of human diseases. This puts biobanks at the forefront of responding to the ongoing worldwide outbreak of the severe pandemic, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The leading public health institutions around the world have developed and established interim policies and guidelines for researchers and biobank staff to handle the infectious biospecimens safely and adequately from COVID-19 patients. A study of these important and complementary policies and guidelines is conducted in this study.
It should be emphasized that the COVID-19 biospecimens must be collected, processed, and preserved by trained personnel equipped with the right personal protective equipment to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and ensure the specimen quality for testing and research.
Six of the leading global public health organizations or institutions included in this study are –
- The World Health Organization
- The Pan American Health Organization
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- The Public Health England
- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
- The Office of Research at the University of California, San Francisco
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Read this blog on how leading biobanks are using OpenSpecimen to manage COVID19 biospecimens.