The father with his baby on his lap had thought about it for a moment, on the way to this large play park in the north of Eindhoven. What kind of place could this be? How busy? Of course there would be many other children. “If it hadn't been for that news, I would never have thought about it.” Harmen (38, last name is bij NRC known) says it with a smile.
'That' news: fourteen children in Eindhoven and the surrounding area have recently become infected with measles. Four babies also died in the Netherlands in February and March from whooping cough. These are diseases that were all but defeated by vaccinations, and now they are returning. Because fewer and fewer parents are giving their children vaccinations.
Harmen was quickly reassured. It is not very busy this gray Saturday afternoon in the large play park De Splinter. He has just had lunch at a picnic table, where his partner Noortje (36) and a friend of the couple, Annemarie (41, both surnames also included) are also sitting. NRC known), sitting. They came to Eindhoven from Leerdam (Utrecht). “Such a measles outbreak is simply unnecessary,” says Annemarie. All three are from the generation in which vaccination against such diseases is self-evident, and they also have their own children vaccinated. Her eldest daughter, aged 9, interrupts the conversation for a moment. “I want all the shots, because I don't want to get sick.”
Advance
The last major outbreak of measles was in 2013-2014. But since last year, the virus has been on the rise in Europe. In addition to a flu-like feeling, it causes red, rough spots all over the body after three to seven days. No children have died from measles this year, the last time this came out was last year, when a girl died at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen. The Netherlands experiences a whooping cough peak every few years. The number of reports is currently rising to around 300 per week, the RIVM reported this week.
These are two of the twelve infectious diseases against which children in the Netherlands are vaccinated. To prevent outbreaks and protect vulnerable people, the vaccination rate should be at least 95 percent, according to the RIVM. The vaccination rate for measles and whooping cough is now below 90 percent.
The vaccination rate among children has been declining for years. That is an international trend, says Jeanne-Marie Hament, manager of the National Vaccination Program of the RIVM. “There are all kinds of factors underlying this. Partly as a result of the corona measures, we saw an increase in distrust towards the government. People are looking for information themselves, may have doubts about whether vaccinations provide long-term protection and therefore look at all vaccinations differently.”
Historically, it was often a religious belief that prevented people from having children vaccinated, and then outbreaks mainly occurred in the Bible Belt. “It is now more widespread, even among highly educated people there are people who no longer want to vaccinate.” A 2022 RIVM poll already showed that parents of young children think more negatively about vaccination than 10 years earlier.
Better information
Theodora Petrou (36) also sees this, who watches her son step onto a rotating playground equipment with a group of other children. “People have become more skeptical and question things that we know work. But maybe it's also because they don't know how vaccines work and we need to explain that better.” Petrou was born in Greece and when she was young it was also a given that you could be vaccinated against diseases such as measles and whooping cough. The news about the declining vaccination rate worries her. “I think more effort should be made to make people understand the need for vaccinations.” Apart from that, she also thinks it is a matter of distrust in the sources from which the information comes. “People doubt authorities more and do not always trust the advice given to them.”
The group of friends at the picnic table also points to the role of the corona period. “I also thought that the corona vaccine came onto the market a bit quickly, and then you still know little about the side effects,” says Harmen. “With the vaccinations against measles and whooping cough you know what side effects there are, even in the long term. So I'm not really afraid of that. Ultimately, I think: as long as you properly vaccinate your children, they have less risk of getting sick.”
But what to do? BOinK, the interest group for parents in childcare, argued this week in favor of offering daycare centers the option to refuse unvaccinated children for the sake of a safe environment. According to Jeanne-Marie Hament of the RIVM, that is not necessarily the solution. “But by asking parents whether they vaccinate their children, you as a daycare center are setting the standard, and that can also help.”
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“I would indeed have difficulty with it if there were many children in daycare who were not vaccinated,” says Annemarie in the play park. But BOinK's proposal does not appeal to parents in Eindhoven. “People will kick against something if they are forced to do so,” says Noortje. Theodora Petrou also has mixed feelings about it. “I think we would rather benefit from informing people. At the same time, I think that people should not always assume that someone else has been vaccinated, that that is enough. Because those people also help a virus mutate, right?”
Experience
The public library on the Emmasingel in the center is very busy later in the afternoon. In the cafe at the back, Stephanie Velkers (38) sits on a low stool next to her 1.5-year-old daughter and helps with an abacus. She too had experienced the measles outbreak in her city. “It is quiet here during the week, I did not expect this hustle and bustle at all. But you can't stay home either.”
She had immediately had questions. What about her daughter at daycare? Are there any children there who have not been vaccinated? “You don't know what else to do as a parent, you can't always take time off.” She hopes that the vaccination will work for her daughter. But she is pregnant, and finds the news more worrying for her second child. “He enters a world where there is a greater risk of such diseases.”
The awareness of how serious these diseases can be has disappeared, because an entire generation has barely experienced measles and whooping cough, she thinks. “Then it may soon be the case that if you do not have your children vaccinated, you will have to suffer the consequences: oh, so this is the disease. Maybe then people will start thinking about it. But then again, they might already be too late.”
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