Instituto Nacional de Salud

The Instituto Nacional de Salud (INS) is Colombia's national public health institute, operating under the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. Its core mandate involves disease surveillance, epidemiological analysis, and laboratory diagnostics to support the country's health system. The institute provides reference laboratory services for infectious diseases, conducts vaccine quality control, and supports outbreak investigations across the nation. It also develops public health guidelines and technical standards that are applied by regional health authorities and healthcare providers. Through its research units, the INS generates evidence on communicable and non‑communicable diseases, environmental health, and occupational risks. Its services are directed primarily at the Colombian population, but it collaborates with international agencies such as the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization.

As a federal agency, the INS has a nationwide reach, with its headquarters located in Bogotá and laboratory networks extending to departmental and municipal levels. The institute's distinguishing attributes include its role as the national reference center for pathogen identification and its authority to issue mandatory reporting protocols for notifiable diseases. It also houses specialized units for antimicrobial resistance surveillance and for the evaluation of medical products, which confer it a technical leadership position within Colombia's public health sector. Structurally, the INS is a decentralized entity of the executive branch, reporting directly to the Minister of Health and Social Protection and without private ownership or subsidiary relationships. The 2017 WannaCry ransomware incident, which encrypted data on four of its servers, underscored the institute's reliance on information technology and prompted governmental advisories on cybersecurity hygiene for public institutions.