The municipality of Papendrecht wants to increase vaccination rates against serious diseases, especially in children

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PAPENDRECHT • Because the vaccination rate among babies and toddlers in the Netherlands has fallen below 90 percent, the municipality of Papendrecht wants to send a signal that more vaccinations against infectious diseases are needed.

A large majority of Papendrecht politicians adopted an amendment to this effect on Tuesday evening, which was submitted by CDA, GroenLinks, ChristenUnie and the VVD. Papendrechts Algemeen Belang (PAB), D66 and SGP also voted in favor. Only Independent Papendrecht (OP) was against.

Karel Spitsbaard from OP: “There is already a lot of attention for this nationally by the Health & Youth Service. Local attention for this is not necessary. That is why we see no need to support this amendment.”

Parties lack ambition
The other parties in the Papendrecht council thought differently. The authors of the amendment lacked the ambition to increase the vaccination rate in the Multi-year Policy Plan 2024-2028 of the Health & Youth Service.

“The World Health Organization WHO sees a vaccination rate of 95 percent as necessary to eliminate diseases such as measles, whooping cough and rubella,” according to CDA, GroenLinks, ChristenUnie and the VVD. In the Netherlands, the vaccination rate among babies and toddlers has now fallen below 90 percent.

Major concerns
“There are major concerns about an increasing number of cases of serious illness and the misinformation circulating about vaccines,” the petitioners said. They argued that children have recently died from whooping cough. “Something that hardly happened in previous years. It is important to let the voices of the professionals be heard.”

And the municipality of Papendrecht will now try to achieve this, because the amendment was adopted by a large majority.