At the weekly press briefing of the Common Community Commission (GGC) on the Brussels vaccination policy, it was announced that an infection with the Indian variant had surfaced in the municipality of Sint-Joost-ten-Node at the end of March. In the meantime, the infected person turns out to be without a trace.
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How the person in Brussels got infected with the Indian variant, the GGC service is now trying to find out as soon as possible. It has only been known since last Thursday that the person was infected with the Indian variant.
“Unfortunately, the person could not be contacted by the contact center, but we are now again doing everything we can to get that person detained,” says Inge Neven, head of the Brussels health inspection. In 94 percent of the cases, the contact tracing succeeds in reaching the infected person, but that is not the case here. They’ve been trying to get hold of the person since Thursday. It wouldn’t be an Indian.
More infectious
The Indian variant may be more contagious than other variants and so the Brussels health services want to prevent the spread of the variant as much as possible. “It is a variant that we want to be very careful with and of which we want to be sure that it does not spread further or as slowly as possible. We want to find out whether this person has traveled or is already infected within Belgium, ”says Neven.
The new variant of the virus has two mutations, one of which is more contagious and better able to bypass our immune system. “The man in Brussels was effectively infected with the more dangerous variant,” says Elke Wollants, lab manager at the Leuven Rega Institute. The students who traveled to Belgium from India last week and became infected were affected by the less dangerous variant. Fear of the mutations is calling from various quarters for an entry ban for Indian students, but a decision has not yet been taken.
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