For more than 100 years, RIVM has been promoting public health and safeguarding a healthy and safe environment. We have a central role in infectious disease control, national prevention and population screening programmes and monitoring our population’s health and the state of our environment. We support citizens, professionals and national and local authorities in the challenge of keeping ourselves and our environment healthy, safe and sustainable. Our ambition is to be a trusted advisor using independent research as the basis for our advisory work. Below we present some of the global challenges we work on and elaborate on our tasks and international activities.
Highlighted themes
What we do
COVID-19 in the Netherlands
RIVM advises the Dutch government on how to control the coronavirus as effectively as possible, monitors the COVID-19 outbreak and conducts research into SARS-CoV-2. RIVM is coordinating the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccinations in the Netherlands. Our institute is responsible for coordinating the storage and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the Netherlands (including the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, St Eustatius, Saba, Curaçao and St Maarten).
We provide weekly updates and data on COVID-19 in the Netherlands. In addition to our general COVID-19 weekly epidemiological update, we also publish a COVID-19 weekly update for the CAS and BES islands: the islands of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten and the special municipalities Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba. A newsletter for professionals involved in the COVID-19 vaccination is published regularly on our website.
Would you like to be kept informed on our work and activities? Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter. Read our international newsletter issue 2, 2022.
Information for refugees from Ukraine
Information on screening programmes, vaccinations for children, the flu jab and more is available in English, Ukrainian and Russian. We have brought together all information on this web page.
News
Number of monkeypox infections continues to rise
More than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have now been confirmed worldwide, spread across 75 countries. Both the number of confirmed cases and the number of countries where the disease is present are continuing to rise

Various options for research into the health impacts of wind turbines
The location of wind farms is a frequent topic of public debate. Some people are concerned about the health implications of having wind turbines placed in the vicinity of their homes.

BA.2.75 variant found in the Netherlands
The BA.2.75 variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has now also been found in the Netherlands. The variant was detected in a sample from 26 June 2022 taken in the region of Noordoost-Gelderland.

Operations postponed due to pandemic result in 320,000 healthy life years lost
The COVID-19 pandemic caused over 305,000 operations to be postponed in 2020 and 2021 in the Netherlands.

Participation in National Immunisation Programme shows slight decrease
Participation in the National Immunisation Programme has fallen slightly, showing a decrease of 1 to 2 percentage points.

SARS-CoV-2 infections continue to rise
Infections with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the Netherlands continued to rise this week. This increase can be seen in sewage surveillance and in the infections reported to the Municipal Public Health Services (GGDs).
