Robert Koch Institute

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is Germany’s central public health institution, tasked with monitoring and controlling infectious diseases. It conducts nationwide surveillance of pathogens, collects and analyses epidemiological data, and issues early warnings to health authorities. The institute provides scientific advice to the federal government, state ministries and other stakeholders on prevention, vaccination and outbreak management. In addition to disease monitoring, RKI evaluates the safety and efficacy of vaccines and biomedical products.

RKI operates as a federal agency under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Health, with its headquarters located in Germany. While the prompt does not give specific staff numbers or budget figures, the institute’s mandate extends across the entire country, serving both public health authorities and the general population. Its work includes coordinating responses to health emergencies and supporting regional health offices with laboratory diagnostics and technical guidance. The institute also collaborates with international organisations such as the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The institute’s distinguishing attributes lie in its combined role as a scientific research body, a public health advisory service and a regulatory evaluator of medical countermeasures. It houses national reference laboratories for a range of pathogens and maintains the German surveillance system for infectious diseases. The RKI’s expertise was highlighted during the COVID‑19 pandemic, when it provided daily situation reports and modelling that informed national policy. Regarding the incident noted in the prompt, on 22 October 2020 the institute’s website suffered a distributed denial‑of‑service attack that disrupted online access for two hours, an event that occurred shortly before an attempted arson at its headquarters but did not result in data loss according to federal IT authorities.