Each year, at the request of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, RIVM prepares an overview of the most important zoonoses and indicates their prevalence in the Netherlands.

For the first time in five years, the number of children receiving vaccinations from the National Immunisation Programme has increased slightly.

The percentage of newborns participating in the immunisation programme targeting mumps, measles and rubella rose slightly over the past year.

From 16 December 2019, pregnant women in the Netherlands will be offered the 22-week vaccination. With this vaccination, a pregnant woman protects her child and herself against whooping cough.

The focus of our annual report State of Zoonotic Diseases 2018 is prevention, with the emphasis on the production chains of foods of animal origin.

In the first six months of 2019, the number of notified meningococcal serogroup W (MenW) disease cases decreased in almost all age groups, after a continuous increase since 2015.

The vaccine against the HPV human papillomavirus virus will also become available for boys.

A number of European countries are currently seeing outbreaks of measles. Before the start of the summer season, RIVM has therefore updated its immunisation recommendation for measles.