Two Filipinos working in India are dead due to COVID-19, the Filipino ambassador to New Delhi announced in a media briefing today.
“We have been informed that our OFW (overseas Filipino workers)…they are managerial level, have passed away. It’s really bad here. But aside from this unfortunate circumstance more or less most of them are fine; Filipinos are helping each other here,” Ambassador Ramon Bagatsing Jr. said.
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“We’re doing everything we can to help [with] the remains and bring it there [in the Philippines],” he added.
Bagatsing said that there are no flights coming from India at present during the pandemic, which makes it more difficult to repatriate the remains of the Filipino workers. The Philippine Embassy in New Delhi was informed of the OFWs’ deaths yesterday by their employers.
At least 20 other Filipinos living in India have been infected with COVID. They are currently isolated and would communicate with embassy officials through social media.
“We are doing everything we can to help them given the situation,” Bagatsing said.
India is experiencing an unstoppable surge of COVID cases, registering about 350,000 per day. The United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom have pledged to help India, which manufactures a huge chunk of the world’s COVID vaccines. One of the vaccines manufactured in India, made by Bharat Biotech, has received emergency use authorization from the Philippine Food and Drug Administration.
