Instituto Pedro Kouri IPK Institute of Tropical Medicine in Havana, Cuba

The Institute of Tropical Medicine was founded in 1937, annexed to the School of Medicine of the University of Havana. 

 Some parapsychological examination techniques were also considerably improved and contributions were made to the description and characterization of new species.

In 1979, the country's leadership gave Professor Gustavo Kourí Flores the honorable task of developing the “Pedro Kourí” Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK). In that decade the internationalist activity of the Cuban people was intense and it became necessary to preserve health both abroad and at home.

Since that date, the objectives and scope of the IPK have been extended to other branches of medicine. In much larger and more modern facilities, its development continues today with a view to reaffirming itself as a Center of Excellence dedicated not only to Parasitology and Tropical Medicine but also to professional training in Medical Microbiology, Infectology, the Epidemiology of Communicable Diseases and Social Research.

In those years the Institute was located in different houses in the surrounding area 200 and 115 in Sibo n e and,  with management, library, 2 rooms for patients, laboratory or medical care and a parasitology and microbiology research house and a group worked in areas of the National Institute of Hygiene and epidemiology. In the early 1980s, all the researchers were concentrated in a much larger room and from there, waiting for the new headquarters and due to local needs, a building was built in the areas of the Girón School of Medicine, until 1992 in which they went to the definitive headquarters in which the workers offered their voluntary work from the beginning when the seed of the new buildings had not yet been reconsidered. It should be noted that even in the start-up phases of this colossal institute, its workers did not stop providing relevant results to the Cuban people.

On October 29, 1993, the facility that the IPK occupies today was inaugurated, with the words pronounced by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, which were: "I beg you not to consider the Pedro Kourí Institute that we inaugurate today only as a Cuban institution, but as an institution of humanity ”.

Since its inception, the institution set general objectives, to protect the population against communicable diseases, participating in their control or elimination, contributing to the development of Biological Sciences in general and Microbiology, Parasitology and Epidemiology in particular, providing highly qualified medical assistance, maintain scientific exchange links in the field of their specialty with institutions in other countries and collaborate with third world countries in the fight against tropical, infectious and parasitic diseases.