COVID-19: Belgium detects virus in fully vaccinated people

About 0.32 per cent of fully vaccinated people in Belgium have tested positive for the coronavirus, the country’s health authority Sciensano announced on Friday.

Sciensano said that as at May 31,  4,526 people out of 1.4 million people who were fully immunized had tested positive for the virus.

Belgium considers people having received full immunity two weeks after the last required shot.

Many coronavirus vaccinations require two jabs, those who have received only one dose are not included in the figures.

More than two-thirds of the people who tested positive for the coronavirus had developed no symptoms.

“These results are an important indication of the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines in Belgium.

“As most cases were asymptomatic, the majority of infections in vaccinated people were only discovered through contact tracing or by chance, for example when a vaccinated person took a coronavirus test after returning from abroad.

“This means that the actual number of coronavirus infections could be higher as it is possible that we did not register all cases,” Sciensano said.

She explains that the numbers showed that the vaccination provided a high level of protection to people from falling ill.

She said that it is still not clear whether vaccinated people can pass on the virus but hope that findings for Belgium would be available soon.

(dpa/NAN)