AP Productions | Bron: ANP
Bilthoven
Covid took by far the most healthy life years of all infectious diseases last year. According to a calculation by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), the disease has led to the loss of 218,900 healthy years of life for the Dutch in one year. This includes both premature death and ‘missed’ healthy life years due to illness.
The burden of disease due to corona was therefore slightly higher last year than in 2020. For that year, RIVM came to 207,000 missed healthy years.
Due to all corona measures, various other infectious diseases have probably been suppressed. Influenza, for example, is not in the top three in terms of disease burden. There was a modest flu epidemic last winter, but it only started late, when the far-reaching measures had already been released. A disease like whooping cough almost disappeared.
Legionella in second place
Second in terms of disease burden is legionella, with 6300 years of healthy life lost. Severe pneumococcal disease took 6,200 years in good health, the researchers estimate.
An infectious disease that continued to spread, despite all hygiene measures, is scabies. The researchers are in the dark about the cause of this increase. They emphasize that combating scabies must primarily be done through a “group-oriented approach”. This means, for example, that in a house all residents participate in treatments and adhere to washing instructions to get rid of the scabies mite, which is the culprit.
Approach insufficiently effective
“A general practitioner or dermatologist often focuses on the treatment of the individual patient, but given the national increase, this approach appears to be insufficiently effective because too little attention is paid to the treatment of contacts,” according to the RIVM. Information is also important, especially for young people who have many different contacts.