One of Belgium’s largest meat processing plants sent 225 workers to their quarantined homes Wednesday after a coronavirus case organization was discovered, the corporation and local mayor said.
Slaughterhouses and meat packaging plants have outbreaks of infection in other countries, as the world is facing the epidemic and the gigantic Westvlees facility in Staden, northwestEr Belgium, is now under close surveillance.
According to a Westvlees spokesman, Manuel Goderis, several cases of COVID-19 infection have been discovered in the plant’s red meat cutting segment, which employs 225 of the more than 800 employees on site in recent days.
“We must not be in any danger and control all the workers in this production unit and quarantine them,” he said. The workers were monitored on Wednesday and effects are expected on Thursday.
More than a quarter of them have been quarantined Photo: Belgian / KURT DESPLENTER
The mayor or mayor of Staden, Francesco Vanderjeugd, told the AFP that six cases shown had been reported earlier in the day and that the number had increased to 18 in a few hours, even though mass tests had been ordered.
Two of the first six cases concerned border personnel from France, two from Staden and two from West Flanders, he added.
Westvlees is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of new and processed pork. It slaughters 1.4 million pigs a year and 140,000 tons of meat to consumers around the world.
Belgium has one of the world’s capita-consistent COVID-19 rates and infection rates are emerging after past good fortune in controlling the epidemic. Of a population of approximately 11 million, 9,852 died.