The Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (IHMT) is an Organic Unit of the NOVA University of Lisbon (NOVA), under the supervision of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, which aims to develop scientific knowledge of problems related to tropical and intertropical environments.

Created on April 24, 1902, under the name of Tropical Medicine School, the IHMT was initially dedicated to the study, teaching and clinical of tropical diseases. This action has evolved into an integrated approach, ranging from the molecular level to global health systems, with a strong commitment to solving health problems that affect the poorest and the most excluded on all continents.

The Institute is recognized nationally and internationally for its history but also for the scientific quality of post-graduate education, research and contribution to health development cooperation in PALOP and Timor-Leste. The quality of its intervention was recognized by the World Health Organization by attributing it the status of collaborating center for the Policies and Planning of the Health Workforce.

The IHMT develops activities in the following areas of intervention:

Education and training

Tropical health education is the original mission of the IHMT, even preceding the creation of the School of Tropical Medicine in 1902. The academic training is centered on doctoral and master's programs with unique specificities in Portugal and in the Portuguese speaking area: in biomedical sciences ( including medical parasitology and microbiology), tropical medicine (clinical and tropical pathology), and public health (international health, health and development, health and development policies, and tropical public health). We teach what we are investigating and we are increasingly oriented to broaden our pedagogical offer through courses not conducive to degree, courses of support to the development and brief formations of technical update. We strongly support the offer of non-face-to-face training.

Investigation

The IHMT research policy is embodied in the Global Health and Tropical Medicine (GHTM) research and development center - rated 'Excellent' by the Foundation for Science and Technology. The GHTM activity is based on two transversal research lines:

1. Health Challenges of Travelers and Migrants
2. Emerging diseases and environmental and climatic changes

These lines bring together the following three research groups: vector-borne diseases; tuberculosis, HIV and other opportunistic agents; population health, policies and services.

Health observation

Health is part of a context of permanent change. Through the systematized observation of this context, the determinants of health, the occurrence of diseases and diseases and their vectors and hosts, the IHMT continuously monitors and evaluates the health status in order to help identify the interventions most appropriate to the detected situations.

Development support

Health development depends on robust organizations that gradually develop local capacity to plan, execute, monitor and evaluate activities leading to health gains in a spirit of universality, equity, solidarity and national and global citizenship. To that end, the IHMT developed a set of formative support for development aimed at enabling competent and motivated agents to develop, in the national health system of each country, the necessary actions to guarantee universal access health care relevant to services provided and safe for those who provide or receive them, contributing to regional, national and institutional health objectives. All these development support courses are offered at the request of the health authorities of a country or region, for their managerial or technical staff, and there is no place for personal initiative. The courses are evaluated and the training actions are complemented by other technical assistance actions according to the needs identified.

Provision of services to the community

The IHMT provides our services to the citizen, through traveler's inquiries, tropical medicine consultations, tropical dermatology consultations, laboratory diagnosis services and methodological support consultations for scientists and academics (epidemiology, biostatistics and qualitative methods). It should be noted that the IHMT also has a reference laboratory for the diagnosis of leptospirosis according to the guidelines of the International Leptospirosis Society (ILS) / WHO, and makes available to researchers and scientists its insectaries and vivarium.

Preservation of historical heritage

With more than 110 years of existence, the IHMT has a cultural and museological heritage of enormous historical wealth. It is our goal to recover and preserve it, so as to give it relevant visibility in the context of the museological developments associated with the history of science in Portugal.