More Keralites are succumbing to COVID-19 abroad even as the State has managed to limit deaths to just five at a time when the world still grapples with the coronavirus pandemic.
At least 55 people from Kerala have died in various countries, the highest reported from the United States at 24.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), from where the majority of the infected reached the State, has recorded the deaths of 17 Keralites. . This Gulf Cooperationn Council (GCC) nation has recorded 71 deaths till Sunday morning. Seven persons have died in the United Kingdom.
The first death of a non-resident Keralite reported was that of a 57-year-old male nurse whose roots are in Changanassery, in Milan in Italy on March 19.
Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department Chief Executive Officer K. Harikrishnan Namboothiri said the State government was compiling a list of Keralites who died owing to COVID-19 abroad. A separate list of non-resident Indians and Overseas Citizen of India was being maintained.
Along with the Indian missions abroad, Kerala has also intensified support for NRIs, especially in the Gulf region, in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Overseas Keralites also make use of videoconferencing and tele-consultation from medical experts in the State. Pathanamthitta with twelve cases tops the list of Keralites in the case of deaths, followed by Kottayam, 9, and Kannur 6. Of the 55 people who died abroad, 46 were men.
Abdul Hameed, 47, from Thrithala succumbed to the disease in Dubai on Friday night. He was under treatment for COVID-19 for the past few days. He was buried in Dubai as per the WHO protocol.
Eliyamma Joseph, 78, of Kaipanchil House at Nedumprom, near Thiruvalla, succumbed to the disease at Winthrop Hospital in New York on Saturday. She is the third person in her family to succumb to the pandemic in the past three weeks after her husband K.J. Joseph and his brother K.J.Eapen.
Kerala on January 30 had reported the first positive case in India with three students travelling from Wuhan province in China, identified as the point of origin of the outbreak possibly in November last. The first COVID-19 death in the country was also that of a 69-year-old man with a travel history to Dubai, at the Ernakulam Government Medical College on March 28.
