“On 20 May 2025, at the 78th World Health Assembly, WHO Member States adopted the Pandemic Agreement (PA), designed to strengthen global preparedness and response to pandemics and only the second legally binding UN health accord in history. Eleven countries abstained from the vote, including the Netherlands, but this was under the Schoof-led government, and with its demise in July 2025 and a new coalition in the making, our stance may shift – or not. So it’s time to explore how important the PA can be for the Netherlands, how prepared we are for the next pandemic, and how we may be unravelling a once-solid international reputation.”

In December 2025, Global Health Perspectives published an interview with Marion Koopmans (Scientific Director of the PDPC) and Anja Schreijer (Medical Director of the PDPC) about how prepared the Netherlands is for future pandemics. Both directors express their worries about the current situation, as experts warn of a ‘severely weakened state of infectious disease control’. This could have major consequences for the Netherlands in the future, particularly given its dense population and strong global connections, which increase the risk of viral introduction and spread.

Koopmans and Schreijer urge political parties to prioritize pandemic preparedness. Besides structural funding, “what the Netherlands needs is a long-term vision for public and global health,” Schreijer adds. A commitment to preparedness would enable us to fix key issues that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as incompatible data systems, difficulty in upscaling contact tracing, and decision-making that focused only on the biomedical perspective.

Read the full interview with Marion Koopmans and Anja Schreijer in Global Health Perspectives.

Interested in this topic? See also the (Dutch) interview of Marion Koopmans in Buitenhof.