Infection protection notification laboratories

The aim of infection protection is to prevent communicable diseases in humans, detect infections at an early stage and prevent their spread.

The Infection Protection Act (IfSG) obliges laboratories to report pathogens and non-named reports of pathogen detection. A distinction is made between named reports of pathogens and non-named reports of pathogen detection.

Named pathogens:

Laboratories for medical diagnostics are obliged to provide the local health authorities responsible for medical practices with reports of abnormal findings, should the pathogens named in the law be diagnosed on sample. The registration forms required for this are provided by the respective state authorities.

Unnamed pathogen detections:

The pathogen detections mentioned in § 7 Abs. 3 IfSG are not to be reported by name directly to the Robert Koch Institute. The RKI provides special laboratory registration forms for this purpose.