Brussels, Jan 30 (IANS): The number of new coronavirus cases has more than doubled among children under the age of 10 in one week in Belgium, a top health official said here.

In a statement issued here on Friday, Yves Van Laethem, the inter-federal Covid-19 spokesman, said the actual rate of increase was 128 per cent, reports Xinhua news agency.

The increase in contaminations among teenagers was 41 per cent, he said.

"Currently in Belgium, three-quarters of the new cases detected are linked to children or teenagers," he said.

The increase is due to the scale of screening campaigns focusing on clusters within schools.

Twenty-one per cent of Covid-19 transmissions occurred in schools, one-third in retirement homes and a quarter (26 per cent) in companies, Van Laethem said.

A total of 702,437 people have been infected with coronavirus in Belgium, according to figures published by the public health institute Sciensano.

The death toll currently stands at 20,982.

To combat the spread of the virus, Belgium launched a vaccination campaign on December 28, 2020, using the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.

The first dose of the vaccine has already been administered to 243,412 people and the second to 3,458 others.

Up to January 26, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products had reported 262 adverse side effects linked to the Pfizer vaccine, 37 of which were considered serious.

"Among the serious effects, 14 people died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. All of these deceased patients were over 70 years of age and five of them were over 90 years of age," said Laethem.

The epidemiological situation remains extremely complex in Belgium. On some days the number of infections is increasing, on other days it is decreasing, he added.