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Utrecht health authorities are ramping up MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccinations ahead of the summer holidays, with a campaign focused on the Overvecht and Kanaleneiland districts, home to many families planning trips to Morocco, according to Dutch media.
Fearing that unvaccinated children could fall ill abroad and bring the highly contagious virus back to the Netherlands, the municipality is offering additional drop-in sessions and distributing multilingual flyers and letters to guide families to Youth Health Care centers.
Local health alderman Eelco Eerenberg (D66) noted that these measures are also part of a broader plan to tackle the city’s declining vaccination rate, especially among families of Moroccan descent. Currently, 9% of two-year-olds in Utrecht have not received a single vaccine from the national program, a figure that has risen for the sixth consecutive year.
The move comes as Morocco has seen a sharp rise in measles cases this year, prompting emergency vaccination campaigns. Moreover, many of measles cases in the Netherlands have been linked to infections contracted in Morocco.
