The Hamburg Port Health Center (HPHC) is part of the Institute for Hygiene and the Environment, a state enterprise of the Ministry of Health and Consumer Protection (BGV).
The HPHC performs sovereign tasks such as inspections of ships arriving in Hamburg with regard to hygiene and drinking water quality, inoculations on board and advice to ship management in the event of outbreaks of epidemics.
The staff of the HPHC, which includes the Port and Airport Health Authority as well as the Vaccination Centre of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, are also involved in various research projects of the World Health Organization and the European Union.
As part of the EU-funded "Shipsan" project and the Joint Action "Healthy GateWays", the HPHC, in cooperation with other Member States, is investigating the health risks associated with cross-border traffic, evaluating existing capacities at border crossings and developing measures to prevent and contain cross-border health risks.
The HPHC advises the e-healthy ship project team on content aspects of the e-health platform.
In addition, the HPHC supports public relations work by disseminating the project results in the Ship Sanitation Committee of German Federal States (AkKÜ).
