Majority of MPs call for mpox vaccine donation to Africa, health minister still refuses

The majority of MPS expressed their support for the Netherlands to send vaccines to African countries affected by many cases of the mpox virus. However, health minister Fleur Algema is against the donation of 100,000 vaccines. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) advises the Minister of Health to donate at least part of the mpox vaccine stockpile, NOS reports.

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, has been circulating in Africa for months now, with a new, more dangerous variant circulating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda since last year. The virus has also been detected in Sweden and Thailand.

The spread of the virus caused concern for the World Health Organization (WHO), which called on countries with vaccine stocks to donate them to African countries. EU Commissioner Stella Kyriakides also appealed to European countries.

Nevertheless, Agema does not consider reducing the current supply to the Netherlands necessary and even irresponsible. In a letter to Parliament, she announced that she would, therefore, refuse to donate vaccines to Africa.

However, the PVV MP failed to mention in her letter that the RIVM had previously advised her to donate a limited number of vaccines. According to the health authority, the Netherlands could spare around 13,200 vaccines to contain the spread of monkeypox in the affected African countries.

According to the RIVM, the stock of around 100,000 boxes is enough for an eventual outbreak. The vaccines are from 2019, and a large part of them can be used up to September 2025.

A majority of the House of Representatives (NSC, GroenLinks-PvdA, D66, CDA, SP, CU, Denk, Partij voor de Dieren, SGP, and Volt) believes that the health minister should follow the advice of the RIVM. "After the coronavirus, we learned that if you want to tackle an outbreak, you have to do it at the source. We even agreed to donate vaccines," said MP Wieke Paulusma of D66.

Expert Henry de Vries, professor of skin infections at the Amsterdam UMC, is speechless about Agema's decision and also wants the government to take preventive measures by donating the vaccines to African countries. "You have to put out a fire at the hearth. Not wait until the fire has spread to Europe," he told NOS.

Agema argues that she had taken the RIVM's advice into account in her decision but still thought it unwise to donate now to fall below the minimum recommended stock of 100,000 vaccines for a longer period later. "The vaccine is now sold out, and the new shipment I ordered is not expected until spring," she said.

In principle, the far-right health minister is not against a donation but does not want to take any risks. She wants to learn from the last mpox outbreak in 2022, when 50,000 vaccines were used. Now, she argues that the new virus variant is more dangerous and has a higher mortality rate than at the time, NOS reports.