Local health board officials have begun testing a number of workers at a Helmond slaughterhouse for coronavirus after two local inspectors and a vet were found to have the virus, broadcaster RTL said on Saturday.

Other abattoir officials in Boxtel who work for the Vion meat processing group are also infected with the virus, RTL said, quoting confidential documents.

On Friday, it emerged that all 600 workers at the Vion meat processing plant in Groenlo have been ordered to stay home in quarantine for two weeks because of an outbreak of coronavirus.

The Groenlo plant, which processes organic pork, was closed on Wednesday after 45 people tested positive for the virus.

‘Meat processing is labour intensive and employs a large number of people,’ FNV spokesman John Klijn told current affairs show Nieuwsuur earlier. ‘And the sector is extra vulnerable because 80% of the workforce are migrant workers who live together and travel to work in small buses. If you then spend the day in a place where social distancing is not possible, then you are asking for problems.’