Environmental Health and Safety

CLASS 1: Agents of minimal hazard under ordinary conditions of handling (biosafety level 1 standards of practice).

CLASS 2: Agents of moderate potential hazard to personnel and environment. This class includes agents which may produce disease of varying degrees of severity from accidental inoculation or injection or other means of cutaneous penetration but which are contained by ordinary laboratory techniques (biosafety level 2 standards of practice and facility).

CLASS 3: Agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal disease as a result of exposure by the inhalation route. Class 3 agents also includes agents derived from outside the United States which require a federal permit for importation unless they are specified for higher classification. This class includes pathogens which require special conditions for containment (biosafety level 3 standards of practice and facility).

(Experiments involving Class 4 or 5 agents are not permitted at SDSU:)

CLASS 4: Agents that require the most stringent conditions for their containment because they are extremely hazardous to laboratory personnel or may cause serious epidemic disease. This class includes Class 3 agents from outside the United States when they are employed in entomological experiments are conducted in the same laboratory area.

CLASS 5: Foreign animal pathogens that are excluded from the United States by law or whose entry is restricted by USDA administrative policy.

Note: Federally licensed vaccines containing live bacteria or viruses are not subject to these classifications. These classifications are applicable, however, to cultures of the strains used for vaccine production, or further passages of the vaccine strains.

· CLASS 1 AGENTS:

• Bacterial agents not in higher class
• Fungal agents not in higher class
• Parasitic agents not in higher class
• Viral, rickettsial, and chlamydial agents not in higher class
  
  

· CLASS 2 AGENTS:

2B Bacterial Agents:

• Acinetobacter calcoaceticus
• Actinobacillus (all species)
• Aeromonas hydrophila
• Amycolata autotrophica
• Arizona hinshawii (all serotypes)
• Bacillus anthracis
• Bordetella (all species)
• Borrelia recurrentis, B. vincenti
• Campylobacter fetus
• Campylobacter jejuni
• Chlamydia psittaci
• Chlamydia trachomatis
• Clostridium botulinum
• Clostridium chauvoei
• Clostridium haemolyticum
• Clostridium histolyticum
• Clostridium novyi
• Clostridium septicum
• Clostridium tetani
• Corynebacterium diptheriae
• Corynebacterium equi
• Corynebacterium haemolyticum
• Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis
• Corynebacterium pyogenes
• Corynebacterium renale
• Dermatophilus congolensis
• Edwardsiella tarda
• Erysipelothrix insidiosa
• Escherichia coli (all enteropathogenic, enterotoxigenic, enteroinvasive and strains bearing K1 antigen)
• Haemophilus ducreyi, H. influenzae
• Klebsiella (all species and all serotypes)
• Legionella pneumophila
• Leptospira interrogans (all serotypes)
• Listeria (all species)
• Moraxella (all species)
• Mycobacteria (all species except those listed in Class 3)
• Mycobacterium avium
• Mycoplasma (all species except Mycoplasma mycoides and Mycoplasma agalactiae which are in Class 5)
• Neisseria gonorrhoea, N. meningitidi
• Nocardia asteroides, N. brasiliensis, N. otitidiscaviarum, N. transvalensis
• Pasteurella (all species except those listed in Class 3)
• Rhodococcus equi
• Salmonella (all species and all serotypes)
• Shigella (all species and all serotypes)
• Sphaerophorus necrophorus
• Staphylococcus aureus
• Streptobacillus moniliformis
• Streptococcus pneumoniae
• Streptococcus pyogenes
• Treponema carateum, T. pallidum, and T. pertenue
• Vibrio cholerae
• Vibrio parahemolyticus
• Yersinia enterocolitica
  
  

2F Fungal agents

• Actinomycetes (including Nocardia species and Actinomyces species and Arachnia propionica)
• Blastomyces dermatitidis
• Cryptococcus neoformans
• Paracoccidioides braziliensis
  
  

2P Parasitic Agents

• Endamoeba histolytica
• Leishmania sp.
• Naegleria gruberi
• Schistosoma mansoni
• Toxocara canis
• Toxoplasma gondii
• Trichinella spiralis
• Trypanosoma cruzi
  
  

2V Viral, Rickettsial, and Chlamydial Agents

• Adenoviruses (human, all types)
• Cache Valley virus
• Coronaviruses
• Coxsackie A and B viruses
• Cytomegaloviruses
• Echoviruses (all types)
• Encephalomyocarditis virus (EMC)
• Flanders viruses
• Hart Park virus
• Hepatitis viruses (associated antigen material)
• Herpesviruses (except Herpesvirus simiae - Monkey B virus which is in Class 4)
• HTLV-3-HIV (determined on a case by case basis)
• Influenza viruses (all types except A/PR8/34 which is in Class 1)
• Langat virus
• Lymphogranuloma venereum agent
• Measles virus
• Mumps virus
• Parainfluenza virus (all types except Parainfluenza virus 3, SF4 strain which is in Class 1)
• Polioviruses (all types, wild and attenuated)
• Poxviruses (all types except Alastrim, Smallpox, and Whitepox which are in Class 5, and Monkey pox which, depending on experiments, is in Class 3 or 4)
• Rabies virus (all strains except Rabies “street” virus - fresh isolate which should be in Class 3)
• Reoviruses (all types)
• Respiratory syncytial virus
• Rhinoviruses (all types)
• Rubella virus
• Simian viruses (all types except Herpesvirus simiae - Monkey B virus, Class 4, and Marburg virus which is a Class 4 hemorrhagic fever virus)
• Sindbis virus
• Tensaw virus
• Turlock virus
• Vaccinia virus
• Varicella virus
• Vesicular stomatitis virus
• Vole rickettsia
• Yellow fever virus, 17D vaccine strain
  
  

· CLASS 3 AGENTS:

3B Bacterial Agent

• Bartonella (all species)
• Brucella (all species)
• Francisella tularensis
• Mycobacterium bovis, M. tuberculosis
• Pasteurella multocide type B (“buffalo” and other foreign virulent strains)
• Pseudomonas malle
• Pseudomonas pseudomallei
• Yersinia pestis
  
  

3F Fungal Agents

• Coccidioides immitis
• Histoplasma capsulatum
• Histoplasma capsulatum var.duboisii
  
  

3P Parasitic Agents

• None
  
  

3V Viral, Rickettsial, and Chlamydial Agents

• Monkey pox, when used in vitro
• Arboviruses (all strains except those in Class 2 and 4. Arboviruses indigenous to the United States are in Class 3, except those listed in Class 2. West NIle and Semliki Forest viruses may be classified up or down, depending on the conditions of use and geographic location of the laboratory)
• Dengue virus, when used for transmission or animal inoculation experiments
• Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCM)
• Rabies street virus
• Rickettsia (all species except Vole rickettsia when used for transmission or animal inoculation experiments)
• Yellow fever virus (wild, when used in vitro)
  
  

· CLASS 4 AGENTS

(Experiments involving these agents not permitted at SDSU):

4B Bacterial Agents

• None
  
  

4F Fungal Agents

• None
  
  

4P Parasitic Agents

• None
  
  

4V Viral, Rickettsial, and Chlamydial Agents

• Ebola fever virus
• Monkey pox, when used for transmission or animal inoculation experiments
• Hemorrhagic fever agents, including Crimean hemorrhagic fever, Congo, Junin, and Machupo viruses, and others as yet undefined
• Herpesvirus simiae (Monkey B virus)
• Lassa virus
• Marburg virus
• Tick-borne encephalitis virus complex, including Russian spring-summer encephalitis, Kyasanur forest disease, Omsk hemorrhagic fever, and Central European encephalitis viruses
• Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, epidemic strains, when used for transmission or animal inoculation experiments
• Yellow fever virus (wild, when used for transmission or animal inoculation experiments)
  
  

· CLASS 5 AGENTS:

(Experiments involving these agents not permitted at SDSU):