Belgium has found four cases of new coronavirus strain, a
spokesperson for the health ministry there has said, AFP reported on Tuesday.

The four cases have been detected among people in northern
Flemish region of the country which borders the Netherlands.

Jan Eyckmans, spokesman for Belgium’s health minister, said
that the cases were found at the beginning of the month.

Another official from the national virus crisis centre said the
figure is conservative and there was strong likelihood that there were more
cases in the country infected with the new variant.

“It’s not much, but it is not impossible that there are
more,” Yves Van Laethem told AFP.

The new strain was found in Britain in September and since
then the country has witnessed a surge in the number of cases infected with
this variant, which led to imposition of fresh movement restrictions across regions ahead of
Christmas.

Also read: Belgium suspends UK flights, trains over more infectious coronavirus strain

Since the emergence of the new virus strain, about two dozen
countries have imposed travel restrictions to and from the UK, including
Belgium, but Van Laetham thinks that may already be too late, since the variant
was found in the UK in September, and is very likely to have spread to places.

“Isn’t the enemy already among us? I don’t know, but
it’s not impossible,” he said. “This closure was perhaps already too
late since they started finding cases of this English strain in
September.”

The variant of the coronavirus has been found in Italy,
Netherlands, and South Africa so far, besides the UK from where its emergence
was reported.