A person from the Saint-Josse neighbourhood of Brussels has tested positive for the highly contagious Indian variant of the coronavirus.
Contact tracing authorities have been so far unable to reach this person, reports Bruzz.
Inge Neven of the Brussels Health Authority shared the information on Monday during a press conference. The new variant was discovered last Wednesday, but it is only now known that it is the Indian one.
India is currently being hit hard by a new wave of coronavirus infections and experts suspect that the Indian variant is more contagious than others that have spread from one country to another.
“It concerns a person from Saint-Josse-ten-Noode who tested positive for the coronavirus at the end of March,” said Inge Neven. “We have no further information on this person yet. We are doing the tracing, but we have not yet been able to reach this person.”
According to Neven, the person is not an Indian. The contact tracing authorities are trying to call the person and look for them at their home, but without success for the time being.
In the rest of Belgium, 23 other cases of the Indian variant are currently known: 20 among nursing students in Aalst and three cases in Antwerp.
In Brussels, all coronavirus infections are now predominantly cases of foreign variants.
“In 86% of the infections it concerns the British variant, five percent are infected with the South African variant and four percent with the Brazilian variant,” said Inge Neven.
The Brussels Times
