Health institute advised health minister to donate mpox vaccines to African countries

Civil servants and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) have advised Minister of Health Fleur Agema to donate over 10,000 vaccines for the mpox virus to countries in Africa. This is evident from a document that the minister sent to the Tweede Kamer the lower house of Dutch parliament on Thursday. Agema nevertheless decided not to donate vaccines.

There are currently 99,700 mpox vaccines available in the Netherlands. The RIVM recommends 100,000 vaccines according to the minister’s document but the institute also felt that 13,200 vaccines should be donated. The boxes can be used up to September of next year and have no EU registration.

The RIVM confirmed to the ANP that it is supporting the advice to donate vaccines. The donations, which other countries are doing, could also help prevent the virus from spreading to Europe. There is said to be a need for 10 million vaccines in the areas most affected by the outbreak in Central Africa.

On Thursday the minister announced that she wants to wait for a new delivery of vaccines at the start of next year before she decides to donate any vaccines. “100,000 is exactly the stock that I have been recommended to keep,” Agema said at the Catshuis. The official document states that the RIVM advised keeping "around 100,000" for a possible outbreak.

"It is a decision that the minister makes herself, and that she is authorized to make," said a spokesperson for Agema. He described her decision as such: “I want to know for certain that we have enough vaccines not that we have nearly enough vaccines."