In the program De ochtend, this Friday the Federal Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit) recognized that “the fact for men to have to recognize having an STD in order to be able to be vaccinated preventively constituted a brake. This is why all men who have sex with men and have more than one sexual partner are now allowed to request a vaccine.”We also need to communicate better,” the minister acknowledged.
So far, only men who have sex with men who have had at least one sexually transmitted disease in the past year, sex workers and transgender people, people with severe immune disorders, laboratory manipulating virus cultures and women receiving “PREP” therapy, to avoid HIV infection, might be vaccinated preventively.
It will also no longer be necessary to present a letter of reference from a general practitioner. The federated entities will communicate from next week how and when to make an appointment at a vaccination center.
The switch to intradermal injection mode, which allows only a fifth of a dose to be used, with a second injection a few weeks later, as well as the “loan” of 1,500 additional doses from the Netherlands enabled this expansion of the vaccination campaign. An order for 30,000 additional doses is also expected in the fourth quarter.
As of September 19, 2022, Belgium had 757 confirmed cases of monkeypox, including 394 in Flanders, 274 in Brussels and 89 in Wallonia.
