Covid-19: Kenyan Embassy in India reaches out to affected citizens

Kenya’s High Commissioner in India, Willy Bett. [File, Standard]

Amid a surge in Covid-19 deaths and cases in India, Kenya has told its citizens to contact and furnish Kenya’s High Commission in India with personal information to help it update its register.

The Commission told Kenyans in India to provide their names as they appear in the passport, their passport numbers, their contacts, their physical address and location in India and their purpose of visit for accountability and decision-making processes.

“Kenyans currently in India are requested to send their names as they appear in the passport, their passport number, telephone and email addresses, their location and purpose of visit to [email protected],” reads a part of the statement.

The commission also advised Kenyans in India to form WhatsApp groups to facilitate ease of communication should need arise.

The statement signed by Kenya’s High Commissioner in India, Willy Bett, assured Kenyans that the Indian Government was instituting various measures to assist in slowing down the rate of infections.

Over 900 Kenyans are said to be living in New Delhi and other parts of the Asian country.

India’s Covid-19 infections rose by 346,786 on Saturday, setting a new world record for the third consecutive day, as overwhelmed hospitals in the densely populated country begged for oxygen supplies.

India is in the grip of a rampaging second wave of the pandemic, hitting a rate of one Covid-19 death in just under every four minutes in Delhi as the capital's under-funded health system buckles.

The government has deployed military planes and trains to get oxygen from the far corners of the country to Delhi.

The crisis is also being felt in other parts of the country, with several hospitals issuing public notices that they don't have medical oxygen.

India surpassed the US record of 297,430 single-day infections anywhere in the world on Thursday, making it the global epicentre of a pandemic that is waning in many other countries.

However, Covid-19 deaths in India rose by 2,624 over the past 24 hours, the highest daily rate for the country so far

The country of around 1.3 billion has now recorded 16.6 million cases, including 189,544 deaths.