Residents around goat farms at higher risk of pneumonia, killing up to 100 per year
People who live within 2 kilometers of a goat farm have a greater chance of developing pneumonia, and the chance increases the closer you live, the RIVM concluded in a study. The RIVM estimated that up to 100 people die per year as a result. The government has asked the Health Council for advice and is not planning to take any measures at this stage, NOS reported.
According to the RIVM, 1.5 million people live within a 2-kilometer radius of a goat farm in the Netherlands. The researchers calculated that an estimated 1,200 to 66,000 extra pneumonia cases occur in this group per year, resulting in 100 to 600 hospital admissions, and 20 to 100 extra deaths per year.
The RIVM also looked into possible explanations for the link between goat farms and pneumonia. The researchers think bacteria is the culprit. They found over 30 different bacteria that can cause pneumonia in the “stable air” on goat farms. 23 of these bacteria types were also found in pneumonia patients, local residents, goat farmers, and in the outdoor air around the farms.
The public health institute added that it is “difficult to prove” that the bacteria from the staples are “the direct cause” of the pneumonia. Fungi and viruses can also cause the lung disease, but do not appear to be the logical link in this case, the researchers said.
This is not the first time the Dutch health institutions have established a link between pneumonia and goat farms. In 2021, the RIVM concluded that people living in rural areas with many livestock farms are 26 to 60 percent more likely to get pneumonia than people living in rural areas with fewer or no livestock farms nearby. It identified goat farms as a major culprit. And in 2014, RIVM research showed that people living in a 2-kilometer radius of a goat farm have a 30 to 50 percent greater risk of pneumonia.
This latest study has again caused strife within the Schoof I Cabinet, NOS reported. Insiders told the broadcaster that Minister Fleur Agema of Public Health is pushing for measures to protect locals, but Minister Femke Wiersma does not want to. She wants to spare the goat farmers until the Health Council's advice. The Cabinet has decided to “consider further steps” only after the Council’s advice which is expected “at the end of this year,” the source said.
They also said that others in the Cabinet hope that parliament will push Wiersma to take measures. A parliamentary debate with Agema and Wiersma about Zoonoses and animal diseases is scheduled for Thursday.
