Longest ever recorded flu epidemic measured in 2015 The most notable infectious disease outbreak in 2015 was the flu epidemic in the winter of 2014-2015, which at 21 weeks was the longest ever recorded in the Netherlands.
First patient infected by tick-borne encephalitis virus 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).
Livestock farming affects pulmonary function in local residents COPD patients living near livestock farms suffer more complications.
Nicoline Tamsma re-elected as EuroHealthNet president Nicoline Tamsma has been elected to serve a new two-year term as EuroHealthNet president. EuroHealthNet is a European network organisation of public health and health promotion institutes.
Bacteria slightly more often resistant to last resort antibiotics Antimicrobial resistance is a global problem. In the Netherlands, some bacteria that can cause infections in people are more frequently resistant to antibiotics used as a last resort.
RIVM and German BfR enter cooperation agreement on animal protection and food safety The German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment (BfR) and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, RIVM have signed a cooperation agreement, focused on developing new sci
Chikungunya infections in the Caribbean region Since August 2014, there has been an increase in the number of Chikungunya patients in the Caribbean region. Travellers who visit the region can become infected there.
Dr. Els van Schie new director of Environment and Safety Dr. Els van Schie has been appointed RIVM Director of Environment and Safety as from 1 February 2015. She will succeed Dr. Marcel van Raaij and interim director Dr.
Release of QMRAspot v2 for quantitative microbial risk assessment of drinking water RIVM has developed a new version of QMRAspot (2.0), a user-friendly computational tool to calculate the risk of becoming infected by pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water.
Annoyance and health effects due to European transportation noise At least 20 million adults in Europe are annoyed by transportation noise in agglomerations, from motorways, airports or railways.