The Robert Koch Institute is the German federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode and is part of the Federal Ministry of Health.
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The Institute was formed by Robert Koch in 1891 as The Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases.[1] The director from 1917-1933 was Fred Neufeld who discovered the pneumococcal types.
The Institute prepares a report on cancer in Germany every two years.[2] The institute also plays a role in advising the German government on outbreaks, such as the 2009 swine flu outbreak.[3]
Reinhard Burger, president of the Institute, said the pattern of the 2011 E. coli outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion that German vegetable sprouts caused the outbreak (that has killed 31 and sickened nearly 3,100) even though no tests on sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony, Germany had come back positive for the E. coli strain behind the outbreak.[4]