An employee of the GGD Haaglanden is preparing equipment to give people the monkeypox vaccine. On Monday, the GGD started the first round of vaccinations against the virus.
(image anp / Phil Nijhuis) –
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Amsterdam/The Hague
It concerns 32,000 men who have sex with men and transgender people who are HIV positive or who take medicines to prevent them from contracting HIV. The monkeypox vaccine must prepare their bodies for the infection and train the immune system to eliminate the virus.
Most infections in the Netherlands have been detected around Amsterdam and The Hague. Later it will be the turn of people in the rest of the country. In the past period, a small group of people have already been vaccinated against the monkeypox virus. These people were at risk of being infected, for example because they had sex or other close contact with an infected person.
Monkeypox is not a venereal disease, but mainly spreads through skin-to-skin contact. Anyone can contract the virus. One patient in the Netherlands has been in hospital to be treated for skin complaints associated with the infection. He has recovered and is back home.
international danger
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) declared monkeypox an international public health threat on Saturday. That is the highest warning level. This has no consequences for the Netherlands.
Worldwide, the virus has now been diagnosed in more than 16,000 people in 75 countries. In the Netherlands, the number of confirmed infections stands at 818 people, including six women and a child.
The Danish vaccine company Bavarian Nordic, the only company with an approved vaccine against monkeypox, wants to ramp up production. The company can currently make 30 million vaccines per year. With extra night shifts, that capacity should be increased.
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