Robert koch institute

The Robert Koch Institute, or RKI for short, is the Federal Institute for Infectious Diseases and Noncommunicable Diseases based in Berlin and is directly subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). The Robert Koch Institute is responsible for the detection, research and prevention of infectious diseases. The RKI collects health-related and epidemiological data, evaluates them and draws up measures for prevention. The Robert Koch Institute continues to be the BMG's reference institution for process standards and quality criteria in environmental medicine and genetic engineering.

According to § 2 of the law on successor institutions of the Federal Health Office, the Robert Koch Institute has the following tasks:

• Detection, prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases,
• epidemiological studies in the field of communicable and non-communicable diseases, including risk identification and assessment, documentation and information
• Collection and evaluation of knowledge and experience on HIV infection and AIDS diseases, including the societal and social consequences,
• Health reporting,
• Risk identification and assessment of genetically modified organisms and products, human genetics,
• health issues relating to the transport of infectious substances,
• health issues relating to the transport of genetically modified organisms and products.

The RKI conducts numerous research projects of its own and provides a large number of epidemiological data and publications on infections and their prophylaxis free of charge.

The name of the Robert Koch Institute goes back to Robert Koch, a German doctor and microbiologist. Robert Koch is regarded as the founder of modern bacteriology and microbiology and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1905.