Jena (dpa/th) - The Jena microbiologist Mathias Pletz is the new president of the Paul Ehrlich Society for Infection Therapy. The director of the Institute for Infectious Medicine and Hospital Hygiene at the Jena University Hospital is now the head of the professional association, which has around 700 members, a spokeswoman for the hospital announced on Tuesday. As a long-standing board member, Pletz takes over from Christian Bogdan from the Microbiological Institute at the University Hospital Erlangen. The election took place around two weeks ago at the digital annual conference of the society.
The Paul Ehrlich Society has existed since 1967. It primarily promotes studies in the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy and deals with the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. "The pandemic has shown the role that infections also play in modern industrialized nations. However, there is too little expertise," said Pletz, according to the announcement. He now wants to contribute to the further development of society as a specialist in internal medicine and pneumology with the additional titles "Clinical Infectious Diseases and Hospital Hygiene".
