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There are no indications that people who previously had Q fever became more seriously ill due to the coronavirus, the RIVM concludes after research. “Even in patients who were so sick that they had to go to the emergency room of the hospital, Covid-19 did not appear to be more serious in people who previously had Q fever,” the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment notes.
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The research started shortly after the outbreak in 2020 and was carried out together with the GGD Hart voor Brabant, the Nivel and the Jeroen Bosch Hospital. The reason for the investigation was that a number of regions in Brabant were hit relatively hard. Q fever was also common in these regions between 2007 and 2010.
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Q fever spread through infected dairy goats and sheep, but is not transmissible from person to person, as is the case with the corona virus. You can get an infection by breathing in air that contains the bacteria.
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The institute looked at how often corona occurred at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in people who previously had Q fever and lived in the east of Brabant. This number has been compared to the total number of people with Covid-19 in this area.
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Q fever patients tested more often
Many people who previously had Q fever have one or more underlying conditions. As a result, they may have been tested more often for the coronavirus at the start of the epidemic. At that time, the testing capacity was still limited and people with underlying diseases and conditions were mainly tested. This happened because they have a greater chance of becoming seriously ill from the virus. “By testing more often, the coronavirus has probably also been diagnosed more often. From June 2020, anyone with (mild) complaints could be tested. After that, we no longer saw that a positive test occurred more often in people who previously had Q fever,” according to RIVM.
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Research air quality and corona
RIVM, together with various partners, is also investigating whether there is a link between air quality and COVID-19 throughout the Netherlands. According to former general practitioner Olde Loohuis, it is established that “the immune system is burdened by particulate matter from goat farms”. earlier said Olde Loohuis to Zemlya that there are signals that the particulate matter also plays a role in the corona crisis. And he is not alone in this.
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Italian researchers also suspect a connection with particulate matter. They discovered that the coronavirus can attach to particulate matter and thus travel great distances through the air. They found the virus in air samples near an industrial complex in the hard-hit city of Bergamo.
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In 2020 concluded Italian researchers already that the outbreak of the corona virus is much more severe in the northern Italian regions with heavy industry. The regions are among the areas with the worst air quality in all of Europe.
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Researchers from the renowned American university Harvard noted that if there is more particulate matter in the air in the years preceding a pandemic, more people will die during a pandemic.
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In its research, RIVM looks at various causes of air pollution. The results of the study are expected in 2023 at the earliest.
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GP in times of crisis
In the broadcast GP in times of crisis from 2020, Zembla will return to the Brabant village of Herpen, where Q fever broke out in 2007. In the broadcast we speak to people who became infected with Q fever at the time and who contracted the corona virus in 2020.
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