News item | 03-04-2024 | 15:20
State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen (VWS) is taking additional actions to restore confidence in vaccinations, increase participation in the National Vaccination Program and thus protect children as best as possible against serious infectious diseases. Central to this is strengthening the neighborhood-oriented approach, such as offering vaccinations in specific neighborhoods in an accessible manner, which is achieving good results in Amsterdam, for example. ErasmusMC’s independent Doubt Telephone, where people can already go with questions about, for example, contraception and HPV vaccinations, will also become a source of information for parents who have doubts about the National Vaccination Program.
Reaching out to parents who have doubts
Van Ooijen: “I understand very well that more parents have doubts after all the polarization around vaccinations that we have experienced during corona times. And if you have doubts and look for answers you will come across an incredible amount of misinformation, disinformation and utter nonsense. We must provide more counterbalance to this. We want to reach out to anyone who has doubts by making clear information more easily available. If you have any doubts, please contact a doctor or nurse, for example online or via the Doubt Telephone or at the clinic. They have really studied it and can explain exactly how a vaccination works and how it protects against very serious infectious diseases.”
Improving information, counterbalancing disinformation
The RIVM improves the provision of information for specific target groups that are less reached with regular resources and channels. In consultation with childcare organizations and key figures for difficult-to-reach target groups, RIVM develops and distributes accessible information about vaccinations. To counteract disinformation, State Secretary Van Ooijen is also looking at the possibility of whether voluntary agreements with tech platforms could be useful, for example about captions for messages containing disinformation or recommendations for messages containing medically verified information. It is also being investigated how to facilitate the scaling up of initiatives such as Doctors Today, in which independent doctors answer medical questions on social media.
Tags: Van Ooijen working additional actions restore confidence vaccinations News item
