Welcoming the 2025 GOARN Berlin fellows

The 2025 GOARN fellows and their mentorsWe are delighted to welcome the 2025 fellows of the GOARN Berlin Fellowship Program, which officially began on 1 March 2025. This six-month program supports public health professionals from GOARN partner institutions in strengthening epidemic intelligence, …

Final Training Workshop in Applied Public Health Research in Namibia 16.06.2025 – 24.06.2025

The CARe (Capacity Building in Applied Public Health Research in GHPP partner countries) project will soon hold its last in-person workshop. The workshop is part of an on-the-job training programme in Applied Public Health Research which has been running since October 2023.

Enhancing Public Health Research: Hepatitis B Prevalence and Immunity Study in Guinea

From March 2nd to March 7th, a ZIG 2 and ZIG 4 research scientists traveled to Guinea to collaborate with the Institut National de Santé Publique (INSP) as part of the Vaccine Readiness in Sub-Saharan Africa (VRSA) project. The project’s current phase focuses on hepatitis B prevalence and immunity …

Training-of-Trainers programme on infection prevention in rural region

As part of the Global Protection Programme (GHPP), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has supported the “Partnership to Improve Patient Safety and Quality – PASQUALE” project in Guinea since 2019 (following its first funding phase within the program …

Protecting the Universal Right to Health: RKI at HNPW 2025 and the 10-Year EMT Anniversary

The right to public health is universal and its availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality needs to be protected. This is one of the reasons why organisations from all over the world come together annually at the Humanitarian Networking and Partnership week(s) in Geneva.

RKI WHO IGS Project Qualitative Field Work in Madagascar

As part of the implementation of the RKI WHO Hub collaborative project A Partnership to Strengthen Integrated Genomic Surveillance through Greater Capacities in National Public Health Institutes, the “IGS Project”, Dr Lenka Körner and Daniel Stewart, researchers from the IGS project team, recently …

ZIG supports EMT Coordination Cell training in Lithuania

Effective coordination of Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) is crucial for timely and efficient humanitarian response during health emergencies. In collaboration with WHO EURO, RKI supported an EMT Coordination Cell (EMTCC) training from 16-22 March 2025 in Vilnius, Lithuania. 

Co-Creation Workshop of the EU Joint Action for Global Health Impact in Berlin Looks into Strengthening Strategic Dialogue in Global Health

On 17-18 March 2025, the Co-Creation Workshop of the EU Joint Action for Global Health Impact (EU JA GHI) successfully brought together key EU and non-EU global health policymakers and experts in Berlin. Hosted in the German Federal Ministry of Health, and organized by the Robert Koch Institute …

Racism and colonial structures in global health - Talk by RKI at the 30th meeting of the Global Health Subcommittee on February 10, 2025 in Berlin

On February 10, 2025, the Global Health Subcommittee of the German Bundestag's Committee on Health met for its 30th and final public meeting of the current legislative period in Berlin. Dr. Iris Hunger from the Center for International Health (ZIG) at the RKI was invited as an expert, among others, …

Empowering the Next Generation of Global Health Experts: The GOARN Berlin Fellowship Program

The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), a key initiative by the World Health Organization (WHO), has long played a vital role in coordinating international efforts to respond to public health emergencies. The GOARN Berlin Fellowship Program, a cornerstone of this initiative, opens …

Irish Chief Medical Officer visits the Robert Koch Institute

On 20 February 2025, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) hosted a high-level Irish delegation for an exchange on current public health topics and strategic priorities in global health.

Strengthening Collaboration for Global Health Across Europe

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Norwegian Directorate of Health (Hdir), have been chosen as co-leads for the evaluation of the EU Joint Action to Maximise the impact of the EU Global Health Strategy (JA GHI), a significant project funded by EU4Health running from 2023 to 2025. The aim of the …

Renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between RKI and GIZ Strengthens Global Health Cooperation

On 10 February 2025, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH renewed their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a further two years, thereby underlining the strong commitment of both institutions to fostering international …

Exchange of German partners in the context of 'Emergency Medical Teams'

On 2 and 3 December 2024, the team of the German National Focal Point for Emergency Medical Teams (EMT NFP), based in the RKI unit ZIG 3, hosted the annual ‘EMT Stakeholder Meeting’ in Berlin. It brought together the German EMT organisations for exchanges with each other, their network partners and …

Emergency Medical Teams project ends the year with an EMT Readiness Training in Indonesia

Between 23 and 25 November 2024, the Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) project EMT TTT, hosted at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), closed the year 2024 activities in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Under heavy rains yet high spirits, an “EMT Readiness Training” was implemented as a joint Twinning activity …

Recognition of RKI’s contributions to Infection Prevention and Control in Nigeria

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) and the Robert Koch Institute have collaborated on global health security and infectious disease control for over a decade. Since 2019, they have partnered in the NiCaDe project. Colleagues from units 15, 37, and ZIG office work on …

Strong ZIG representation at the WHO Emergency Medical Teams Global Meeting 2024

The Global Meeting of the World Health Organization's Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) Initiative in November 2024 took place with significant participation from the German EMT organisations and the RKI's Centre for International Health Protection (ZIG). Prof. Dr. Johanna Hanefeld, head of ZIG and …

Publication of PALS Training Handbooks

The Participatory Approach to Learning in Systems (PALS) is an innovative approach that is applied in Nigerian healthcare settings to improve infection prevention and control (IPC) practices by mobilising, enabling and empowering healthcare workers at the facility level to become Change Agents. The …

Building on local knowledge and community action within mid-term workshop of One Health project

The project operates on the principle that communities themselves are best equipped to identify and address their own health-related concerns. A mid-term workshop in Berlin provided a platform to assess the project’s progress and to plan next steps.

Gateway for evacuations from Ukraine – a visit to the EU-MEDEVAC Hub in Poland

Since September 2022, the “MEDEVAC Hub Jasionka”, run by Polish relief organisation Polish Center for International Aid (PCPM), has been supporting medical evacuations from Ukraine. Located in Rzeszów, about 80 km from the Polish-Ukrainian border, the medical facility provides a stopover for the …

RKI running second face-to-face workshop in applied public health research in Namibia

The CARe project (Capacity Building in Applied Public Health Research in GHPP partner countries) has continued its training program on applied public health research methods with a second face-to-face workshop seven months after the initial workshop in Namibia. The workshop took place from June 10 …

ZIG again supports Joint German EMT Exercise

Joint training for joint deployments - under this theme, the second joint exercise of the German Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) took place in the Ahr Valley from 29 May to 2 June. The EMTs from Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB), CADUS e.V., humedica and Johanniter trained for humanitarian deployments, …

GOARN Capacity Strengthening and Training Programme: ZIG hosting the first flagship course of GOARN Outbreak Response Leadership Capacity Strengthening

On 18 -22 September, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) hosted the first “GOARN Outbreak Response Leadership Training Programme” of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) in Berlin, in collaboration with GOARN Secretariat and the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP). A total of 24 …

“Health Security Partnership in Africa” advocates for better surveillance

As part of a 14-month project, the RKI is participating in an initiative that advocates an integrated approach to the early detection of potential disease outbreaks in Africa. The Centre for International Health Protection supports Morocco, Namibia, South Africa and Tunisia in the areas of “Epidemic …

International Advisory Board of ZIG discusses developments in global health

The Scientific Advisory Board of RKI’s Centre for International Health Protection met in Berlin in April 2024. The board is chaired by the Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot who is known as the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, founding director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United …