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Belgium confirmed on Wednesday 10 new cases of coronavirus, bringing its total cases to 23, according to a press release issued by the Federal Public Health Service.
The reference laboratory of the KU Leuven, a research university in the Dutch-speaking town of Leuven in Flanders, Belgium, carried out 495 new tests for COVID-19 on Tuesday and ten people tested positive.
Of these ten, nine had returned from a trip to northern Italy. They developed a respiratory tract infection and a relatively mild flu. These nine patients are in quarantine at home.
The other one, however, developed a more severe respiratory infection and was admitted to Saint-Pierre Hospital in Brussels.
Further investigation by the medical teams and hygiene inspectors revealed that this patient had been in contact with a patient carrying coronavirus after his trip to Veneto in northeastern Italy.
Also on Wednesday, news site Euractiv reported that a EU staffer tested positive for the novel coronavirus after returning to Brussels from Italy.
The report said the unnamed official works in the European Defence Agency, and as a result all meetings to be held at its premises until March 13 have been cancelled as a precautionary measure. The authorities said he is among the 23 confirmed cases.
Belgium reported the first case of COVID-19 early February, when one of the nine returnees from Wuhan, China, tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The Belgian was discharged from the Saint-Pierre Hospital in Brussels on Feb. 15 after tests turned negative.
