National ABC deployment concept - 7. -

7th Task Force - Outbreak Investigation Team

In 1996 the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) founded an Outbreak Investigation Team in Berlin to provide state or local authorities with administrative assistance in combating the disease in the event of an epidemic. This "rapid reaction force" of RKI scientists with laptops, cell phones, questionnaires and laboratory equipment has to deploy up to ten times a year if an infectious disease has broken out in a small town or at a school. The experts then try to identify the source of the infection using epidemiological methods Clarify the type of pathogen and its transmission pathways. You analyze through interviews whether the various sick people have eaten the same thing or attended the same event. Diagnostic laboratory tests complete the investigation. The RKI task force can fall back on the "Interdisciplinary Expert Network Biological Hazards". It is supplemented by corresponding units from individual federal states. (25)

Address:

Robert Koch Institute

North bank 20

D-Berlin 13353

Telephone: 030 - 18754-0

Fax: 030 - 18754-2328

Website: http://www.rki.de

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Sources:

(25) Piper, Gerhard: Expansion of the biological high-security laboratories in Germany, Telepolis, Munich, July 12, 2009,
Online: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/30/30698/1.html

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