Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute
The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute ( Swiss TPH for short ) is a research and service institution associated with the University of Basel , which was founded in 1943 by the zoologist Rudolf Geigy . The institute in its current form was created in 2009 through the incorporation of the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Basel into what was then the Swiss Tropical Institute. At the same time, the name was changed from the Tropical Institute to today's Swiss TPH.
On the one hand, the institute conducts travel medicine (prevention, diagnosis and treatment of tropical diseases ), and on the other hand, infection-biological and epidemiological research. In addition to its work with a focus on countries in the global south , the institute also works intensively on health problems (e.g. fine dust , tobacco consumption , electromagnetic radiation ) that also affect the northern hemisphere. It also offers services for national and international health organizations such as the SDC or the WHO .
In university teaching, the Swiss TPH offers a wide range of courses ( BSc , MSc , PhD , MBA , MAS , CAS , DAS ) in epidemiology, public health, health system management, infection biology, drug research and as part of the training curricula of the University of Basel related fields.
The Tropical Institute , as the Swiss TPH is still commonly called, also trains development workers in medical as well as social, cultural and economic topics typical of developing and emerging countries (e.g. in the so-called tropical course) and offers international training and further education programs for health professionals, doctors or public health specialists. Swiss TPH is also one of the co-sponsors of the Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH +).
Currently (2018) the institute employs over 850 people from 80 nations. Around 600 of them work in Basel, while the rest are employed abroad. The current director is Jürg Utzinger, who has headed the institute since July 1, 2015.
history
Many tropical institutes - such as those in Antwerp, London, Liverpool or Paris - were founded in the course of colonialism to do agricultural and medical research for the benefit of the colonial troops and plantation owners . For example, although Isaac Miville from Basel was the head of a Swedish slave fort on the coast of what is now Ghana and some business people, especially from the cities of Geneva , Neuchâtel and Basel , were involved in the slave trade, Switzerland had little reference to colonialism. However, the Protestant Basel Mission had been active in Ghana since the early 19th century and later in other countries.
In 1942, Alfred Gigon, professor of internal medicine at the University of Basel, proposed the formation of a tropical institute. In the next year, the parliament of the canton of Basel-Stadt decided to found a Swiss Tropical Institute. This happened on the basis of funding measures by the federal government, which feared high unemployment in the post-war period and therefore wanted to set the post-war economy in motion through research projects. The institute began its work in 1944 under Professor Rudolf Geigy, and offered the first “General Tropical Course”, which, for example, offered trade travelers on a wide variety of topics such as the tropical flora, “ Distribution and physique of tropical human races”, land surveying and “Adaptation of the European Way of life to the tropics ». The first “Tropical Medicine Course” followed in 1946, and in 1947 they moved into their own building, the former “Zur Föhre” doctor's villa at Socinstrasse 57. At the same time, a tropical medicine and surgical clinic was opened in the neighboring “Sonnenrain” building - which was closed in 1990 and moved into one Nursing home being converted.
In 1951 and 1957, two outposts of the institute were founded - the Center Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Côte d'Ivoire , and a laboratory in Ifakara , Tanzania . The "Zur Föhre" building was expanded in 1961 with a new building. This includes a lecture hall, research laboratories and a library. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Tropical Institute established itself as part of the University of Basel: Rudolf Geigy became rector of the university in 1962, the university's first electron microscope was installed at the Tropical Institute in 1964 , and in 1973 the institute was supported by the federal government as part of a university .
Institute director
- 1944–1972: Rudolf Geigy
- 1972–1987: Thierry Freyvogel
- 1987–1997: Antoine Degrémont
- 1997–2015: Marcel Tanner
- Since 2015: Jürg Utzinger
Research focus and structure
The institute is divided into five areas which serve both research and the provision of advisory and diagnostic services. It is noteworthy that the Tropical Institute carries out all activities from the recording of the medical problem (epidemiology) and basic biological research to the development of the necessary measures (establishment of the health system , elaboration of treatment campaigns), the development of the remedies as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the treatment campaigns. That is why the institute brings together experts from human and veterinary medicine, biology, geography, environmental sciences, anthropology, sociology and other fields.
Together with four other European tropical medicine research institutes, SwissTPH has been co-editor of the specialist journal Tropical Medicine & International Health since 1996 . The journal Acta Tropica was founded in 1944 at what was then the Tropical Institute. However, since 1989 it has been published by the Elsevier publishing house .
Epidemiology and Public Health
The currently (2015) largest cohort study in Switzerland, SAPALDIA, is led by the Tropical Institute. It was started in 1991 to elucidate the connections between air pollution and respiratory diseases; today she is researching the causes of healthy aging. It is the only national population-based cohort study in Switzerland. Other topics in this department concern zoonoses such as rabies , the analysis of human diseases in the context of their environment ( e.g. schistosomal diseases , the transmission cycle of which depends on certain aquatic organisms), malaria research, gender and reproductive health, and research into the effects of electromagnetic radiation and other environmental stressors.
Medical parasitology and infection biology
This department mostly works with molecular biological methods and examines how infections work at the cellular level, how infections can be diagnosed, and how the immune system reacts to pathogens. The focus in this area is on malaria , tuberculosis and sleeping sickness .
Swiss Center for International Health
The SCIH designs, accompanies and improves health systems and the use of digital aids in medicine (e.g. telemedicine ).
Medical services and diagnostics
The Department of Medicine, newly created in 2017, combines all medical services, diagnostics as well as the development and testing of remedies, especially for malaria (RTS, S) and sleeping sickness. As the second largest travel medicine center in Switzerland, the Tropical Institute looks after more than 12,000 business travelers and holidaymakers each year and offers advice, vaccinations, examinations, diagnostics and follow-up treatments for parasitic diseases, which mostly occur in the tropics. The same department is the national reference center for the diagnosis of parasitic diseases.
Education and Training
Since 2016, the entire university and postgraduate course offering at Swiss TPH has been coordinated by the newly created Education & Training (ET) department. ET is also responsible for the coordination and support of the> 170 doctoral students.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Swiss School of Public Health +. (No longer available online.) In: www.ssphplus.ch. Archived from the original on July 8, 2016 ; accessed on July 13, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Swiss TPH: Annual Report 2018 . Ed .: Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute. Basel ( issuu.com ).
- ↑ Professor Jürg Utzinger elected the new director on July 1, 2015 ( Memento of the original from February 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on February 2, 2015)
- ↑ Rudolf von Albertini, Albert Wirz: Colonialism. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- ↑ Christof Dejung (Interview): The Swiss practiced a kind of secondary imperialism . Tages-Anzeiger, 10 December 2012.
- ↑ Lukas Meier, Niklaus Weiss (2014): "From STI to Swiss TPH - highlights on the history of the Swiss Tropical Institute"
