From malaria to cholera to pandemic, the ISS turns 90

The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) today celebrates the 90th anniversary of its birth in the presence of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. It is the main research body for public health in Italy. Born on 21 April 1934 in Rome, under the Ministry of the Interior and with the name of the Institute of Public Health. In that period, Italy was still a country with a high percentage of illiterates, with very large regional and gender differences, with an average lifespan of just over 50 years, still affected by malaria which claimed thousands of victims. It was precisely the fight against malaria that gave impetus to its birth and growth. Over the years, increasingly effective strategies were developed to combat the insect vectors of the disease which led to a clear decrease in malaria cases, above all thanks to the use of DDT (the dangers of which were not yet known). In 1971 the WHO declared Italy a country free from the disease. From 1935 to 1961, under the direction of Domenico Marotta, 4 Nobel Prize winners worked in the Institute, from Ernst Boris Chain to Daniel Bovet. In 1963 Nobel Prize winner RitaLevi-Montalcini arrived at the Institute. A microtome, six object holders, an object holder, a conveyor belt and a tape holder were all he asked of Bovet, who in 1963 directed the Institute's Therapeutic Chemistry Laboratory. In fact, the ISS was the first place to welcome her when she returned to Italy, after having been in America. In 1973 the Institute was at the forefront in combating the cholera epidemic in Naples and 3 years later, on 10 July 1976, its experts were among the first to intervene during the Seveso disaster, in which a toxic cloud of dioxin was released. On 23 November 1980, after the Irpinia earthquake, the ISS developed a plan to overcome health emergencies and intervened in the field with its experts. The years 1990-2000 were instead those of research projects to fight AIDS, while in 2000-2010 the commitment to combat SARS, avian influenza and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (the so-called mad cow disease) was important. Finally, in 2020 the pandemic emergency saw the Institute at the forefront, monitoring the SarsS-Cov-2 infection, in collaboration with the Regions, as well as developing epidemic containment protocols.