RIVM has investigated the so-called giant tick that was found in Odoorn in the province of Drenthe on 13 July. It is a Hyalomma marginatum female. 

According to a survey by RIVM , 27,000 people were infected with Lyme disease in 2017. In 2014, the last time RIVM reported on the incidence of tick-borne disease, this number was 25,000.

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

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.

One in 5 tick bites occurs in an urban area. Although most tick bites occur in the countryside, many people are bitten in urban areas as well.

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

For the first time, a person in the Netherlands has fallen ill after a bite from a tick carrying the tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBE virus).

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.

At the start of the “Tick Awareness Week”, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) and Wageningen UR are commencing a large-scale study on the long-term effects of