Search

Each year, RIVM provides an overview of the most important developments in infectious diseases in the Netherlands and, if relevant for the Netherlands, abroad. This State of Infectious Diseases provides policy makers among which, those working at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and the Municipal Health Services, with insight into these developments. In 2021, the coronavirus pandemic entered its second year. The Dutch government continued taking measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. These coronavirus measures also appear to have had an effect on the incidence of infectious diseases other than COVID-19. For instance, the seasonal flu epidemic occurred far later in the winter of 2021–2022 than before the pandemic. There was also an epidemic of the RS virus, which started much earlier than normal and lasted very long. Notably, almost no cases of pertussis (whooping cough) have been reported in the Netherlands since the coronavirus measures were introduced. Also noteworthy is the sharp rise in scabies infections in care-facilities the Netherlands in 2021. The State of Infectious Diseases also reports on the number of ‘healthy life years’ lost due to infectious diseases across the Dutch population. This number is expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), a measure that combines the duration and severity of a disease with the number of people who have it. In 2021, most healthy life years in the Netherlands were lost due to COVID-19 (218,900 DALYs), the flu (10,200 DALYs) and severe pneumococcal disease (8,300 DALYs). In 2020, this top three did not include flu and consisted out of: COVID-19 (169,400 DALYs), legionnaires’ disease (6,300 DALYs) and severe pneumococcal disease (6,200 DALYs). Every year, the report zooms in on a specific topic. This year’s thematic section gives an overview of the coronavirus measures taken from March 2020 to May 2022 and the numbers of infectious diseases occurrences in this period. These numbers were compared to those from the period 2015–2019. There were four discernible patterns in infectious disease incidence in the coronavirus pandemic years. Rates of many infectious diseases went down after restrictions were implemented and up again when they were lifted. However, these increases came at different times than in previous years, for some infectious disease rates just returned to pre-pandemic levels, whilst others remained very low. There are 10 infectious diseases on which coronavirus measures appear to have had no impact at all. A possible explanation for these diverging patterns is that different measures, such as social distancing, hand washing and reduced travel, had different effects on different infectious diseases. It is also likely that fewer people visited a doctor due to the high demand for care.