Guest of Fabrice Grosfilley at 7.15 a.m., ULB immunologist Michel Goldman explained the importance of serology tests during the deconfinement phase. Such tests allow “to identify those who were suspected of having the infection. It is important that we can now check the infection of these people”. These diagnoses then make it possible to “understand how the virus is transmitted. This is where the link is made with deconfinement. These tests are necessary for deconfining in an intelligent and responsible way”.
> CORONAVIRUS in BELGIUM: the latest news
“Thanks to the tests, we can get an idea of the places where this virus has infected a large number of people”, continues the doctor. He cites as an example households that appeared in specific places: “We know the problem of nursing homes, but it also seems that homes have been created around slaughterhouses in several countries. It would be important to check whether there are homes in our country like these.”
Promiscuity, cold, ventilation …
In fact, slaughterhouse closings have multiplied in the United States after numerous cases of contamination. Four controllers responsible for enforcing health rules died after contracting the disease. At the end of April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States estimated that the number of employees in Covid-19 positive meat and poultry processing plants was close to 5,000.
In Germany, more than 90 cases have been discovered in recent days in a slaughterhouse in Lower Saxony, after several hundred others in several regions since April. In France, two slaughterhouses in the west of the country have been affected in recent days, with at least 100 cases (other tests are in progress). Other cases have notably been reported in Australia, Spain and Brazil.
Why are Covid-19 cases increasing in slaughterhouses? Experts still do not fully understand the reasons, but the promiscuity, the cold and ventilation conditions specific to these factories are envisaged. “The large number of epidemics in meat processing plants around the world requires investigation”, professor AFRA Raina MacIntyre of the University of New South Wales near Sydney told AFP.
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