Sir Peter Karel, Baron Piot, is a Belgian-British microbiologist known for his research into Ebola and AIDS.
A virucide is any physical or chemical agent that deactivates or destroys viruses. The substances are not only virucidal but can be also bactericidal, fungicidal, sporicidal or tuberculocidal.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is a German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode. As an upper federal agency, it is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Health. It was founded in 1891 and is named for its founding director, the founder of modern bacteriology and Nobel laureate Robert Koch.
Ilona Kickbusch is a German political scientist best known for her contribution to health promotion and global health. She is adjunct professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.
Germany ranked 20th in the world in life expectancy in 2014 with 76.5 years for men and 82.1 years for women. It had a very low infant mortality rate, and it was eighth place in the number of practicing physicians, at 3.3 per 1,000 people.
Jörg Hinrich Hacker is a German microbiologist. He served as president of the Robert Koch Institute from 2008 to 2010 and of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina from 2010 to 2020. He is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Medical Microbiology.
Sir Jeremy James Farrar is a British medical researcher who serves as Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization since 2023. He was previously the director of The Wellcome Trust from 2013 to 2023 and a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford.
Barry R. Bloom is Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases and Department of Global Health and Population in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, where he served as dean of the faculty from 1998 through December 31, 2008.
Ralf F. W. Bartenschlager is a German virologist who has been researching hepatitis C since 1989. He is a professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Heidelberg University.
The Standing Committee on Vaccination at the Robert Koch Institute, or STIKO, is a scientific committee comprising 18 members at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany that provides official recommendations for the vaccination schedules used by the individual German states. The committee meets twice yearly to review the latest research regarding vaccination against infectious diseases. Although the STIKO makes recommendations, immunization in Germany is voluntary and there are no official government recommendations. German Federal States typically follow the STIKO's recommendations minimally, although each state can make recommendations for their geographic jurisdiction that extends beyond the recommended list. In addition to the proposed immunization schedule for children and adults, the STIKO recommends vaccinations for occupational groups, police, travelers, and other at risk groups.
Chikwe Ihekweazu is a Nigerian epidemiologist, public health physician and the World Health Organization’s Assistant Director-General for Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems.
Christian Heinrich Maria Drosten is a German virologist whose research focus is on novel viruses (emergent viruses). During the COVID-19 pandemic, Drosten came to national prominence as an expert on the implications and actions required to combat the illness in Germany.
Johan Giesecke is a Swedish physician and Professor Emeritus at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
Bärbel-Maria Kurth is a German statistician and epidemiologist. From 1998 to 2019, she headed the Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. In 1998, she initiated the first nationwide health survey. Subsequently, she and her department established a continuous health monitoring system for Germany.
John N. Nkengasong is a Cameroonian-American virologist serving as the Global AIDS Coordinator in the Biden administration since 2022 and Senior Bureau Official for Global Health Security and Diplomacy since 2023. He previously worked as the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 to 2022, as well as at the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nkengasong was appointed the WHO Special Envoy for Africa.
Georg Peters was a German physician, microbiologist and university professor. From 1992 until his fatal mountain accident he headed the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University of Münster. He was an internationally recognised expert in the field of staphylococci and the infectious diseases caused by them, to which he had devoted himself since the beginning of his scientific career.
The government of Germany has initially responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country with preventive measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 in the country. With the nationwide spread of the disease from March 2020, preventive measures were replaced by containment measures, including a lockdown from March. On 25 March, the Bundestag made the determination of an epidemic situation of national significance. This created a legal framework for the government of chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of the 16 German states to agree on nationwide pandemic restrictions. Implementation of decisions by that panel remained a matter of individual states, however, leading to differences in anti-pandemic rules and regulations across states.
The 2022–2023 mpox outbreak in Germany is part of an ongoing global outbreak of human mpox caused by the West African clade of the monkeypox virus. At the beginning of September 2022, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom are the countries with most cumulative cases in Europe.
Lars Schaade is a German physician. He is a specialist in microbiology and infectious disease epidemiology and has been president of the Robert Koch Institute since 2023. He has been an honorary professor at Charité since 2017.
