The contagious skin disease scabies is increasingly diagnosed in the Netherlands. It is estimated that approximately 100,000 Dutch people will contract scabies this year. “Worry numbers. If we don’t do anything about this, it will only get worse,” says Ewout Fanoy, who is a doctor at the GGD Rotterdam-Rijnmond. The Telegraph.
In 2014, less than 30,000 Dutch people had scabies. The increase in recent months has been noted, among others, by Nivel, a public knowledge institute that conducts research into health care and collects data from general practitioners for this purpose. Pharmacists also see that the existing cream (permethrin) and pills (ivermectin) against scabies are being used a lot.
The number of cases of scabies is increasing, especially among young people and students. Most cases occur in Groningen, Drenthe and Rotterdam-Rijnmond. In week 46 this concerned 14 out of 100,000 people in the Netherlands, but these are only the people who reported to the GP.
What exactly is scabies?
Scabies, also called scabies, is caused by scabies mites. That is a kind of spider that you cannot see with the naked eye. It crawls over with skin-to-skin contact, and it takes about fifteen minutes to do so. Fleeting contact is therefore not a risk, but long-term contact is.
The scabies mite digs holes in the skin and lays eggs there. This causes itching, especially at night, and flakes between the fingers, in the groin, in skin folds and on the stomach or back. The bumps and flakes will not go away without treatment.
‘A systematic approach is necessary’
Rapid recognition of complaints, good treatment and a group-oriented approach can inhibit the increase, according to the doctor. Professor of clinical microbiology Heiman Wertheim of Radboudumc in Nijmegen also warned earlier in the AD that a systematic approach is needed. “Otherwise things will go really wrong and the numbers will only increase.”
This upward trend has been visible for a number of years. “The annual figures are our precise figures, but we also look at the data from general practitioners on a weekly basis. And there you can see very well whether there are sudden changes,” said Mariëtte Hooiveld, project leader surveillance at Nivel, earlier this week. Radar. Nevertheless, she does see a trend in the short term.
How come?
The big question is, of course, what caused this increase. “We see a decrease in distance due to the corona measure for all infectious diseases. But in scabies, the increase continues. In student houses, nursing homes, in short: in houses where many people are close to each other, there are outbreaks,” GGD doctor Fanoy explains to De Telegraaf.
Scabies is common in the poor countries of Africa and the Middle East. “In Syria, for example. So it may in part have to do with migration,” says Fanoy. “Either with holidaymakers, or with the increase in student contact with each other. Scabies is transmitted through physical contact, such as within families or through sexual contact. In the part of Germany that abuts the Netherlands, there is also a lot of scabies.”
DNA research into the skin mite will hopefully shed light on the reason for the increase. For example, Fanoy would like to know whether the DNA of the Dutch mite is the same as that of the German mite. “And whether we have different variants of skin mites in our country within groups in society. With the DNA research we hope to better understand the routes through which the mite spreads. If we know that, we can focus additional communication on that.”
By: Marinka Wagemans
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