[Advisory statement of the Health Council of the Netherlands on vaccination against meningococcal disease: a missed opportunity?]

The recent outbreak of serogroup W meningococcal disease in the Netherlands, and the start of the vaccination campaign for adolescents in response, dominated the national headlines in 2018. During this time, the Health Council of the Netherlands prepared an advisory statement, which was released in December 2018, on how meningococcal disease caused by various serogroups could be controlled in the future. The Counsel recommends to include vaccination against serogroups A, C, W and Y for infants and adolescents in the Dutch National Immunization Programme. By contrast, vaccination against serogroup B was not recommended. This article is a commentary on the recommendations in the advisory statement and discusses the epidemiology of meningococcal serogroup B infections in the Netherlands, the effectiveness of the vaccine against this serogroup as well as common side effects, and as such demonstrates the difficult balance between pros and cons and the need for broadly based discussion in the public sphere about the scope of the Dutch National Immunization Programme.