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The relationship between living near a goat farm and pneumonia is so likely that the Health Council wants measures. Earlier this year, it was announced that every year, twenty to one hundred residents near goat farms die additionally from pneumonia.
The first signals that people who live within a radius of 2 kilometers of a goat farm are more likely to get pneumonia were already there in 2018. Then the Health Council concluded that more research was needed. The council presents the result on Thursday to the Ministries of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) and Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security and Nature.
In February, the then ministers Femke Wiersma (Agriculture, now outgoing) and Fleur Agema (Public Health) wrote that there are annually 1,200 to 6,600 extra cases of pneumonia among residents of goat farms. It is estimated that this causes twenty to one hundred extra deaths per year and that one hundred to six hundred extra patients are admitted to hospital.
The Health Council does not think that one specific pathogen causes people who live near a goat farm to get pneumonia, but that it is more of a combination of factors. “Specific characteristics of goat farms and sensitivity to pneumonia play a role in this.”
The researchers have put several studies side by side, and they point to a connection. For example, in Noord-Brabant and Noord-Limburg, where there are many livestock farms, there were up to 60 percent more cases of pneumonia between 2014 and 2016 than in areas with few livestock farms. Other studies showed that the lungs of residents of goat farms work less well. After an infection with the coronavirus, residents also had more severe symptoms than others.
Health Council sees sufficient reason for measures
Now that more regions have been investigated, the Health Council believes that there is sufficient reason for measures to limit the health risks for residents of goat farms.
The Health Council does not yet mention specific measures. “To determine which type of measures may be appropriate and effective, the Health Council will go deeper into the nature and severity of the health risks in the second part of the advice,” the council writes. This advice is expected at the end of this year.
The Netherlands has approximately four hundred farms where goats are kept. Approximately one and a half million people live within a radius of 2 kilometers around those companies.