Official Belgian sources have confirmed that cases of the Indian variant of Covid-19 had been detected among a group of students who arrived in April from India via the Parisian airport of Roissy.
The "Indian" variant of the coronavirus was detected for the first time in Belgium among a group of students arrived this month from India via the Parisian airport of Roissy, we learned Thursday from a source official in Brussels.
The services of Pedro Facon, who has the title of Belgian government commissioner in charge of the health crisis, confirmed to AFP information from the media and Belgian experts.
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Victims of a "super contaminator"
A total of 20 Indian students tested positive for the new variant and placed in quarantine in the Flemish cities of Aalst (11) and Leuven (9), where they arrived in mid-April for nursing training. According to several experts, they would have been victims of a "super contaminator", perhaps within their group, during the bus trip which brought them from the Paris region to Belgium.
"These students have been in strict isolation since their arrival. 20 of the 43 students are so far infected with the 'Indian' variant," tweeted microbiologist Emmanuel André, from the Catholic University of Louvain.
Virologist Marc Van Ranst, another prominent Belgian expert in the crisis, told Flemish radio that the group landed in Roissy on April 12, and that five days later several students fell ill, with symptoms of the virus. .
The analyzes carried out in the reference laboratory of the University of Louvain made it possible to diagnose the presence of the Indian variant, already identified in the United Kingdom and which is causing concern.