European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases


The European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, or ESCMID, is a Swiss-based non-profit scientific international organization involved in the prevention of infectious diseases. Their mission is to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of infection-related diseases by promoting and supporting research, education, training, and good medical practice.
Another of the important tasks completed by the society is the organization of the annual four-days scientific congress ECCMID. This is the largest scientific congress in the field of medical microbiology with almost 15,000 visitors. To present scientific work at the congress, more than 5,000 abstracts are submitted every year by researchers from many different countries. The next ECCMID will be held in Vienna, Austria.
The ESCMID jointly organizes European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing, the European standing committee for defining guidelines to interpret antimicrobial resistance.

History

It was founded on 12 February 1983 in Munich as the European Society of Clinical Microbiology. In 1990 it was decided to include infectious diseases.

Structure

It is headquartered in Basel in the Swiss Basel-Stadt canton.
The current President is Prof. Maurizio Sanguinetti of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
in Rome, Italy. The President-elect and Secretary General is Prof. Annelies Zinkernagel of the Universitätsspital Zürich in Zürich, Switzerland.

Scientific Journal

ESCMID makes the monthly journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection freely available to all ESCMID Members.

Assembly of Members

The assembly of members is held every year at the annual congress.
In 2020 it was an alternative version of the ESCMID Assembly of Members, by voting in the internet, as the annual congress got cancelled.