Public Health
One of the key roles of HPI is its direct response to specific threats to Public Health, by detecting and isolating numerous pathogens causing outbreaks, epidemics and/or pandemics. In parallel it assists the Ministry of Health in the surveillance, prevention and control of infectious diseases through its National Reference Laboratories. Clearly, the geographical position of Greece at the crossroads between East and West and in the vicinity of North Africa plays a strategic role in monitoring the import, emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases into the European continent.