Saturday 4 March is HPV Awareness Day. It is a day to stop and think about the human papilloma virus (HPV) and the six kinds of cancer it can cause. These cancers affect both men and women.

This spring, more than 800,000 young people received an invitation to be vaccinated against HPV, the human papillomavirus.

It is largely assumed within the scientific community that a healthy intestinal microbiome can provide resistance against the settling, growth and multiplication of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Employees at sewage and wastewater treatment plants in the Netherlands and Germany are not more likely to carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria than other people.

In 2020, the year of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, resistant bacteria were not found more often in patients in the Netherlands than before the outbreak.

Worldwide, the number of bacteria resistant to antibiotics is increasing. In the Netherlands, this number generally remains stable and is less high than in many other countries.