New figures: people still die of Q fever

The Q fever epidemic is more than seven years behind us, but the latest figures still give a serious picture according to patients and experts. Since 2016, the dangerous variant of Q fever has been diagnosed in 80 other people. In total, 519 people have this form of the disease.

The mortality rate since the epidemic has also been adjusted. Since 2016, 21 people have died as a result of the disease. The total number of deaths thus amounts to 95.

Nobody predicted that more than eight years after the death of the major epidemic would die as a result of Q fever.

45,000 infections [19659005] Between 2007 and 2011, many goats and sheep were infected with the bacterium Coxiella burnetii. People can also get sick when they have inhaled bacteria from sick animals.

The first cases were observed in 2007 in East Brabant. Q fever was a fairly unknown disease at the time. Disease control measures persisted for a long time and thus the epidemic could become the largest in the world

Three years later, at least 45,000 people were infected, according to conservative estimates. Most patients came from Brabant, Gelderland and Limburg.

Database

Since 2010, the epidemic has been largely controlled. The number of sick goats and sheep is declining and the number of complaints is lower. Chronic patients are followed closely. All medical data from this group of patients with the most serious complaints are stored in the national chronic Q fever database .

Thanks to the database, researchers know that 1 to 5% of people who have received the bacteria have become ill. : they developed the chronic variant of Q fever. 60% of this group had complications such as inflammation and problems with the heart and blood vessels. A quarter of these patients die within three years.

In the new figures of the database, internist and infectiologist Chantal Bleeker of Radboudmc again sees the need for more research. "There are still patients with chronic Q fever and people who are still dying, which speaks to the great importance of attention and research on chronic Q fever."