Brussels wants to boost its Covid-19 screening of asymptomatic patients with four new testing centres, Brussels Health Minister Alain Maron told Belga News Agency on Tuesday.
The opening of these new testing centres will make it possible to increase daily testing to a large scale like in the Antwerp test village, which the Brussels Region has been in contact with according to Bruzz.
"I cannot yet give precise locations, but we have been working for some time on finding a location near the Gare du Midi railway station, for example. The timing is also not yet clear. We don't want to rush things, but we are working hard on it," Maron said.
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Initially, the average would increase to 5,000 tests per day, and later to 9,000. This is in line with the federal capacity, which should rise to 90,000 per day for the whole of Belgium, Maron added.
The city is also looking at other ways of increasing testing capacity, such as “longer opening hours and even testing possibilities during the weekend,” head of the Brussels Health Inspection Inge Neven told De Standard.
The Brussels Region is currently seeing its coronavirus numbers increase, with 1,161 cases in the last seven days and an incidence of 172.5 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last two weeks according to the Sciensano public health institute.
Brussels is currently the second-most affected region in the country, with 12,744 cases, second only to the significantly larger province of Antwerp, where 17,594 cases have been recorded.
Jason Spinks
The Brussels Times
