Two EU officials working in Brussels test positive for coronavirus including one who had returned from Italy
- A European Defence Agency staff member returned from Italy on February 23
- He started feeling sick on Saturday and has since tested positive for the virus
- The second virus patient works in a security unit of the European Council
Two EU officials have tested positive for coronavirus in Brussels, it emerged today, in the first cases to strike the bloc’s institutions.
One patient, a European Defence Agency staffer, had recently returned from Italy and tested positive after feeling ill at the weekend.
Meetings at the headquarters of the Brussels-based defence agency have been cancelled until March 13 as a result.
The second virus patient works in a security unit of the European Council and is believed to have been in contact with a previous case in Belgium, an EU official said.
An EU official has tested positive for coronavirus in Brussels after returning from Italy , it emerged today, in the first case to strike the bloc’s institutions (file photo)
The European Defence Agency staffer returned from Italy on February 23, started feeling sick on Saturday and subsequently tested positive.
‘We have confirmation of the case,’ European Commission spokeswoman Dana Spinant said.
EDA spokeswoman Elisabeth Schoeffmann denied a report that the man had attended a four-hour meeting with 30 other officials before he was diagnosed.
The report by Euractiv had claimed that one of those other officials was already being tested for coronavirus.
The European Parliament has already limited public access to its buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg, amid fears that large gatherings could hasten the spread of the global outbreak.
But by Wednesday this rule was already under fire after an exception was made for teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who is in Brussels to lobby for more determined climate action.
The Belgian health ministry said that any case reported in the EU Brussels agencies would be counted in the Belgian figures as they track the spread of the virus.
That also includes the second EU case, who is thought to have been in contact with another patient in Belgium.
There have been at least 23 cases in Belgium, 10 of them reported within the last 24 hours.
Nine of the 10 new cases represent victims who have recently returned from Italy, the worst hit so far of European nations. Belgian media today reported the first case which had been transmitted on Belgian soil, rather than brought home from abroad.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said earlier this week that the EU’s disease prevention agency ECDC had raised the risk level ‘from moderate to high’.
‘In other words, the virus continues to spread,’ she told reporters.
To coordinate the EU reaction to the outbreak, EU health ministers will gather in Brussels on Friday for an extraordinary meeting, the second this year to address the coronavirus crisis.
The health council could be held in parallel with an extraordinary meeting of EU migration ministers, an official said.
EU experts have so far agreed that turning people potentially infected with the virus back at borders could help spread the disease, but this position is subject to weekly reviews.
Closing Schengen’s internal borders on health grounds would be unprecedented.