In 2013 the Hirsch Institute of Tropical Medicine (HITM) was officially inaugurated as a
branch of the Department of Gastroenterology Hepatology and Infectious Diseases at Heinrich
Heine University Düsseldorf under the direction of Professor Dieter Häussinger. The HITM serves
as a place of scientific medical knowledge transfer postgraduate medical training and of
conducting scientific projects relating to tropical medicine and infectious diseases. The
publication relates the past activities of the institute its history and perspectives.
Moreover it permits a look behind the scenes during the construction of the institute in
Africa and describes the living conditions and impressions of the staff. Dieter Häussinger
Director of the HITM and the Department of Gastroenterology Hepatology and Infectious
Diseases and Professor of Internal Medicine at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf focuses on
the areas of clinical and experimental hepatology and gastroenterology he is committed to the
expansion and further development of the field of infectious diseases. He encouraged the
certification of his department as a Center of Infectious Diseases the addition of a tropical
medicine and an infectious diseases outpatient clinic the building of the Liver and Infectious
Diseases Center which houses the only treatment unit in North Rhine-Westphalia for highly
infectious patients and the founding of the Hirsch Institute of Tropical Medicine.
