As Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc in India, the deadly virus claimed the life of a Filipino staff member of the Philippine embassy in the South Asian country on Sunday.
The casualty was confirmed by Ivy Banzon-Abalos, Department of Foreign Affairs executive director for strategic communications.
This comes as several Indian staff and junior diplomats at several foreign diplomatic missions including New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, Palestine and the US have reportedly tested positive to COVID-19 since the dreaded second wave hit the nation.
A news report in a leading English daily in India said that while some personnel in these diplomatic missions were self-isolating at home after testing positive, few others required hospitalisation.
Indian officials, however, have refused to issue any official communication on these developments.
Few news reports in the past have also reported on some diplomatic missions facing difficulties in accessing both medicines and hospital beds.
Hindustan Times, in its report, claimed that the missions of the Philippines and New Zealand sought oxygen support from the Indian Youth Congress. The report prompted the Ministry of External Affairs to announce that the Indian side was providing necessary medical support to the diplomats based in New Delhi.
Meanwhile, worried by the unprecedented surge in cases and crumbling healthcare system, certain countries have even begun to evacuate diplomats on health grounds from India.
In a recent development, the government of Thailand had sent an air ambulance to evacuate several diplomats.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said at a press briefing: “As far as our borders are concerned, I think the worldwide tendency or phenomena [travel ban] is to continue with the travel ban because of the double variants coming from India.”
“I think regardless of the classification to be recommended by the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease), we won’t open our borders… So that won’t change, our borders will remain closed especially to countries like India and Pakistan, which recently imposed an absolutely no entry policy,” he added.
