Belgian meat plant quarantines 225 staff
One of Belgium’s biggest meat processing plants has sent 225 staff home to quarantine Wednesday after a cluster of coronavirus cases was discovered, the firm and the local mayor said.
Abbatoirs and meat-packing plants have become infection hotspots in other countries as the world deals with the epidemic and the big Westvlees facility in Staden, in northwest Belgium is now under close watch.
According to a Westvlees spokesman, Manuel Goderis, a number of cases of COVID-19 infection were discovered in recent days in the pork-cutting section of the plant, which employs 225 of the more than 800 workers on site.
“We decided not to take any risks and to test all the employees of this production unit and to put them in quarantine,” he said. The workers were tested on Wednesday and results are expected on Thursday.
Westvlees is one of Europe’s biggest producers of fresh and processed pork. It butchers 1.4 million pigs per year and supplies 140,000 tonnes of meat to clients worldwide.
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