Infected

In the four-part documentary series, scientists from the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Belgium search for answers to vitally important questions about healthcare and disease control. That these are both under extreme pressure worldwide is a phenomenon we are experiencing first-hand during this devastating COVID-19 pandemic which ITM scientists were already warning us about years ago.

In each episode, we follow inspiring scientists who devote themselves heart and soul to the improvement of international healthcare. We accompany them to remote Congolese villages, to the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, to the agricultural fields of Ethiopia and to remote Vietnamese indigenous minority settlements.

But these scientists are also hard at work along our motorways, in our front gardens, in residential care centres and, of course, in their labs in Antwerp. Together with these researchers, we examine how well prepared we are to face new diseases and what plagues we might expect as a result of accelerated globalisation, exacerbated by global warming. And how to deal with the greatest threat … the human behaviour?