Robert Koch Institute

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As part of the Federal Government of Germany, the Robert Koch Institute organization is responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode, and is a part of the Federal Ministry of Health.

History

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.

Operations

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] In 1941 the Institute was directly involved in setting up experiments into typhus at Buchenwald Concentration Camp which resulted in the deaths of 127 of the 537 camp inmates involved. [4]

2011 E. coli outbreak

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 50 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.[5]

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Robert Koch Institute: History
  2. ↑ Robert Koch Institute: Homepage
  3. ↑ "First suspected swine flu death in Germany". The Local. 26 September 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-08. 
  4. ↑ Richard J. Evans: The Third Reich at War, Penguin 2009, p606
  5. ↑ Kirsten Grieshaber and David Rising (2011-06-10). "Germany: Sprouts Did Cause Deadly E. Coli Outbreak (VIDEO)." The Huffington Post, accessed September 25, 2011.

External links

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