30 more Filipinos in India catch coronavirus — envoy

FILE PHOTO: A patient with breathing problem is rushed to a hospital for treatment, amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ahmedabad, India, April 15, 2021. REUTERS/Amit Dave

MANILA, Philippines — Thirty more Filipinos in India tested positive for COVID-19, pushing the total cases to 50 in just two days, Manila’s ambassador to the South Asian country said Thursday.

“In just this month alone, it’s terrible. Three days ago, we had two deaths. Tuesday, I had only 20 reports of COVID positive cases. As of today, I had to add 30 more. So now I have 50 Filipinos with COVID,” Philippine Ambassador Ramon Bagatsing Jr. told INQUIRER.net in an interview on INQside Look.

June 2020 data showed that there are at least 1,319 Filipinos in India, according to Bagatsing, who cited records from India’s immigration offices.

“My count, because of people coming in and out, I think there are about a maximum of 3,000 Filipinos here,” he noted.

“The composition is: 80 percent are housewives and only 20 percent are [overseas Filipino workers], the rest are teachers, or priests or students,” he said.

India has been seeing aggressive virus resurgence amid the discovery of the so-called double-mutant variant in the South Asian nation.

According to Bagatsing, the embassy last year only recorded one Filipino COVID-related death.

“[The fatality] was a tourist. This was sometime in March [last year]. So that was it, so we were very fortunate but really sad one death is more than enough,” he said.

“Not too many cases [among] Filipinos. Our concern is more on the repatriation. We were able to repatriate more than 1,000 Filipinos last year,” he added.

EDV