Health institute investigating possible link between Covid, Q-fever

Public health institute RIVM launched an investigation into a possible link between Q-fever and the coronavirus. The goal is to find out whether people who've had Q-fever are extra susceptible to the coronavirus, Brabants Dagblad reports.

According to the newspaper, the Ministry of Public Health commissioned this study partly due to unrest in Noord-Brabant last year when it turned out that a hard-hit area in the first coronavirus wave overlapped with the region where there were many Q-fever patients in the past.

The RIVM will invite about 1,200 Noord-Brabant residents who had Q-fever in the past to participate in this study. The aim is to find out whether Q-fever left them more susceptible to the coronavirus, as well as whether coronavirus infections were more severe in them.

The study will be completed in the second quarter of this year.