Infectious disease specialist Karen Lacombe said on Wednesday that the Indian alternative, plunging India into crisis, “may already be in France.” You might not be wrong: Arriving from India in the last few weeks, and passing through Paris, several students tested positive for this type of Covid-19. A total of 20 Indian students have tested positive for the new variant and have been quarantined in the Flemish cities of Aalst and Leuven.
According to several experts, they could have been victims of a “super pollutant”, possibly within their group, during the bus journey that took them from the Paris region to Belgium. These students have respected strict isolation since their arrival. 20 of the 43 students have so far been infected with the variant in case Twitter microbiologist Emmanuel Andre, of the Catholic University of Louvain.
Virologist Marc Van Ranst, another prominent Belgian expert on the crisis, told Flemish Radio that the group landed in Roissy on April 12, and five days later several students developed symptoms of the virus. He explained, “a severe pollutant had infected them on the bus since the first students fell ill five days later, on April 17th.” free.
Students who have been vaccinated
These students continue to be quarantined. It is, of course, subject to strict police control. “Students are not allowed to leave their homes under any circumstances,” the mayor of Aalst, Christophe Dehaes, told the Belgian news agency Belga. “The local police are monitoring the situation and our crisis team is watching the students closely,” said Mohamed Radwani, mayor of Louvain.
to me RTBF, Many of these students, who are studying nursing, were vaccinated with India vaccine and AstraZeneca. Mark Van Ranst notes that “it does not appear to fully protect them from infection and the development of symptoms.” Most of the infected students show mild symptoms, but none has been hospitalized.
The Belgian media, which discloses the information, does not detail the path the students took in France. RTBF states that the bus driver has tested negative, but has tested negative. It is also not known whether these students had contact with other people upon their arrival in France. They had to undergo a PCR test in their country before boarding the plane, and then a rapid test again upon arrival in Roissy, according to Belgian media.
Video. B.1.617, the “double mutant” variant causing the outbreak in India
This Indian alternative worries the world. India has plunged into an unprecedented crisis since the start of the pandemic, with more than 200,000 cases per day. This variant, resulting from multiple mutations of the Covid-19 strain, is proving to be more contagious than the other variants, without knowing whether it is more dangerous or more lethal. Starting from Saturday, France has instituted a mandatory quarantine for all travelers from India. The French Public Health Authority revealed, in its epidemiological point, on Thursday, that no case of the Indian type was discovered in the French capital.
