MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), has lifted the temporary ban on importation of domestic pigs and pig products including pork meat and semen originating from Belgium.

In a memorandum signed on October 26, the agency said that the European country has recovered from the outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in domestic and wild pigs, based on the report of Belgium’s Director of Veterinary Services Dr. Jean Francois Heymans.

The report said ASF affected only wild boars and the last documented case was reported in March 2020.

Based on the documents submitted by the veterinary services of Belgium, and after thorough evaluation of BAI, the risk of contamination from importing domestic pigs and their products from Belgium is negligible, the agency said.

Agriculture Secretary William Dar stressed however, that despite the lifting of the ban, importations of pig and pig products from Belgium must comply with certain conditions imposed by the agency. 

Belgian Prime Minister, Sophie Wilmes, was met by a silent protest during a non-official visit to Saint-Pierre Hospital in Brussels on Saturday (May 16).

A video obtained by Reuters showed medical staff wearing protective equipment standing silent in two rows and turning their backs as the Prime Minister arrived in a car.

The workers staged the protest to call for increased acknowledgement of their efforts and against a decree to recruit unqualified staff to carry out nursing activities, according to local media.

Belgian schools will partially reopen and markets, museums and zoos will also be allowed to operate again from Monday (May 18), Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes said on Wednesday (May 13), in a further easing of the country’s two-month coronavirus lockdown.

Belgium, with a population of 11.5 million, is among the European nations worst hit by COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, but it began a phased easing of the restrictions at the start of May.

The country has so far reported 54,989 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 9,005 deaths. (Reuters)

(Production: Oleksandr Ieltsov, Hanna Rantala, Gabriela Boccaccio)

As Belgium obliges people to wear face masks on public transport and recommends them elsewhere to limit the spread of the coronavirus, deaf people are calling for transparent masks to allow them to communicate with others.

For the hearing-impaired who rely on lip-reading to complement sign language, even buying an ice cream can now be difficult as shop assistants wear medical or home-made cotton masks that cover almost half the face.

“We are no longer able to read lips. It prevents communication,” said Marie-Florence Devalet of Belgium’s French-speaking deaf federation, saying it can add to the anxiety of living through a pandemic.

Over 5% of the world’s population – or 466 million people – has disabling hearing loss, according to the World Health Organization.

Belgium, like other European countries, is slowly coming out of lockdown as the wave of transmission of the coronavirus eases, but donning masks is new to much of the population.

With green and white medical masks around the world in short supply, transparent masks are even harder to find. Some are advertised online but usually end up being face shields for the whole head and worn by medical staff in hospitals.

At the Royal Woluwe Institute in Brussels, a special-needs school, teachers are sewing masks that contain a transparent window to show the mouth, which can be especially important for children with autism.

However, each mask takes 30 minutes to make and requires a double layer of cotton fabric, ribbons and a plastic sheet.

One charity in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking Flanders region has created videos in Dutch teaching people how to make the masks with a transparent window for the mouth. French and English videos are being developed. (Reuters)

(Production Clement Rossignol, Christian Levaux)