Patients with multiple sclerosis will be able to get fingolimod capsules quicker, health minister Edith Schippers said on Tuesday.

Fingolimod, an immunomodulating drug, is only suitable for patients with relapse-remitting MS. At the moment, it is only being made available to a few hundred patients.

Schippers has now given the go-ahead for all sufferers of this specific type of MS – between 5,000 and 7,000 patients – to have access to the drug.

The minister also wants to set up a national MS register so that each patient can be monitored for the effects of whatever drugs they are taking.

In total, the Netherlands has 16,000 MS sufferers.