Influenza vaccination reduces the number of influenza virus infections but not the overall number of illness.

Vaccination coverage for vaccinations in the Dutch National Vaccination Program (NIP) decreased slightly by about half a percent for the third consecutive year.

The societal costs of Lyme disease have been determined for the Netherlands for the first time. The disease appears to cost nearly EUR 20 million each year.

Researcher Dr Guus Velders of RIVM has made the Nature top-10 list of 2016. This means that, according to Nature, he was one of the 10 most influential scientists in 2016.

Scientific research by RIVM’s Guus Velders stood partly at the basis of the HFC global climate agreement.

Last winter season, the duration and severity of the influenza epidemic was moderate compared to previous years.

Lyme disease can cause a variety of complaints in patients. Laboratory tests for the disease can support medical practitioners in making a diagnosis but are not necessarily conclusive.

The most recent measles epidemic and outbreak of Salmonella Thomson due to smoked salmon have cost 3.9 and 1.7 million euros, respectively.

Without global agreement on the use of HFCs, their contribution to the greenhouse effect may increase sharply to 10 percent of that of CO2 by 2050. The current contribution is less than 1 percent.

The flu epidemic in the winter of 2014 / 2015 lasted 21 weeks and as such was the longest epidemic ever recorded in the Netherlands. Nearly two million people suffered from flu-like symptoms.