At least 50 employees of a slaughterhouse in Staden (north-western Belgium) have tested positive for Covid-19, the mayor of the city told AFP on Thursday, August 6, deeming " possible " that a large many live in France. More than 200 employees of the cutting room of the establishment near the Franco-Belgian border had been quarantined and had to undergo tests, a spokesperson for the Westvlees company Manuel Goderis said on Wednesday.
Read also: Covid-19: in casinos, nothing is going well
" Of the 225 employees quarantined, 193 have been tested so far, the results of 164 are known and 50 are positive, " said Mayor Francesco Vabderjeugd. “ Currently, I do not have the location of the domicile of the 50. It is possible that there are many who live in France, ” he added. " We are awaiting more results (...) There will be tests on a larger scale within " the slaughterhouse, he added. The company has a total of 850 people.
Cross-border workers from France
Of the 6 positive cases initially reported, two concerned cross-border workers from France, the mayor said on Wednesday. He also specified that he had already contacted the Romanian consul concerning possible contamination of nationals of this country working at the slaughterhouse.
Read also: Justice looks at rents for Covid-19
Westvlees presents itself as one of the most important European producers of fresh and prepared pork. The company processes 1.4 million pigs per year into more than 140,000 tonnes of pork and has customers in 50 countries. The cutting activity should continue at other company sites than Staden, a company official said on Wednesday.
Belgium, which has been facing an increase in new infections for about three weeks, has recorded 71,158 cases and 9,859 deaths since the start of the epidemic. It is one of the countries with the highest number of deaths in relation to its population with 85 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
