Animal Production and Experimentation

General Rules of Use

(SPECIFIC WORKING PROTOCOLS CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM THE CENTER'S INTRANET)

Access Request

Only duly trained personnel will be allowed entry as marked by current legislation (RD 53/2013), or be tutored at all times by another person who possesses such training (see guardianship document Annex 9) , as well as the agreement to abide by the standard operating procedures of the animal facility.

The protocols to be used must be under a granted research project and have been approved by the competent authority (Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca) in the framework of an enabled ethical committee (Comité Ético de Experimentación Animal), as marked by RD 53/2013.

Researchers who wish to enter the different areas must request an access card from the person in charge, which is personal and non-transferable. Together with the card they will be sent the rules of use of these areas. 

If the person who wishes to enter the animal facility has pets of any kind (except rodents and lagomorphs) at home, he/she is obliged to inform the person in charge, since the rules of entry may be different.

If the user has rodents or lagomorphs in his house, he CANNOT ENTER THE ANIMALARIUM.

Whenever you want to access any area of the animal facility, you must take into account if you have had previous contact with laboratory animals outside the center or in any other area of the center itself. If this is the case, the researcher must communicate this circumstance to the person in charge of the animal facility before entering, who will determine the quarantine period that the user must comply with before accessing the facility.

Researchers who are going to enter these areas on an ad hoc basis must be accompanied by someone from the service or by a person with a card, and they will only have to request verbal permission from the person in charge. If necessary, the person in charge will decide whether or not to issue a provisional card for that person.

Persons external to the institute (such as maintenance technicians, construction workers, etc.), who for a justified reason need to access any area of the animal facility, must always be accompanied by personnel from the service or from the center (own maintenance service), always with the prior authorization of the person in charge of the service.

Basic Hygienic-Sanitary Rules for Animal Facility Users

• Any activity to be carried out in the animal facility shall be programmed in due time.

• The accesses to the animal facility should always be closed so as not to alter the pressures that are being controlled.

• The doors of the various cells, laboratories, storerooms, etc. shall always remain closed.

• Any activity carried out in the animal facility shall be done according to the procedures established at the time.

• All users must access any area of the animal facility in IBIS work clothes, i.e. pajamas, gown and clogs, never in street clothes.

• All users must keep the area as they found it, discarding gloves, masks, shoe covers and any other type of garbage in the containers provided for that purpose.

• It is forbidden to drink, eat or chew gum in the animal house.

• Avoid unnecessary noise while working throughout the animal house, especially in the animal housing areas.

• All manipulations inside the animal house should be done with gloves.

• Wounds should be covered.

• Any anomaly in the state of health of the personnel that is going to enter the animal facility shall be previously communicated to the person in charge of the animal facility.

• Any chemical substance or biological agent to be used for the treatment of the animals shall be identified and the person in charge of the animal facility shall be notified of its use.

• Waste substances shall be disposed of in the containers provided for this purpose depending on their toxicity.

• Needles, syringes, blades, knives or waste material should not be left in common areas.

• For each of these products there are appropriate containers.

• When handling chemical substances that pose a health risk, appropriate protective measures must be taken.

• Personnel who use experimental animals and develop any type of allergy must inform the person in charge of the animal facility.

• Any accident that occurs shall be reported to the person in charge of the service and to the person in charge of occupational risk prevention.

• At the end and before leaving, hands should be washed with plenty of water and disinfectant soap.