Via ABS-CBN News in Manila, a June 1 report: OFWs in Middle East safe from coronavirus. Excerpt:
Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remain safe from the SARS-like virus now spreading in the Middle East, the Department of Labor and Employment said yesterday.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said they have not received any report of Filipino workers being infected with the deadly virus.
“This is not new to us, we have been monitoring these reports and we believe there is no reason for our workers and their families to be alarmed,” Baldoz said.
She said the Philippine Overseas Labor Office has not recorded any Filipino worker who manifested symptoms of respiratory illness.
But a group of OFWs in the Middle East urged the government to deploy a team of medical experts to Saudi Arabia to educate the OFWs on how to protect themselves from the infection.
“Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia should be properly informed, educated, and guided about taking care of their health amid the spread of MERS (Middle East Respiratory Symptom Coronavirus),” Migrante Middle East regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona said.This is not an idle worry. Saudi Arabia has countless foreign workers from many countries, and any contagious disease could spread very far in those workers.
