A Delhi Based NGO Undertakes Awareness, Sanitisation And Thermal Screening To Help Fight Coronavirus

With the continuous rise in the cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), help is coming in from all quarters to fight the spread of infectious disease. From monetary donations to messages reaffirming the importance of hand washing, social distancing and staying indoors, to those providing food and shelter to migrant labourers and daily wage earners, Indians are coming together in various ways to take on the common enemy - coronavirus. Swasthgram, a Delhi based non-governmental organisation (NGO) working in the health sector, is spreading awareness about the disease and screening people for coronavirus.

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India reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 30 in Kerala and with that Swasthgram sprung into action and started working towards their campaign ‘Combat COVID-19'. After getting a green signal from the government, an awareness camp was launched on March 20. Talking about the idea behind initiating ‘Combat COVID-19', Amit Bhatnagar, founder of the Swasthgram said,

We often conduct regular health camps and screening of potential patients of fatal diseases, both communicable and non-communicable diseases. Following the same, we planned to organise the awareness campaign in Delhi-NCR. The motive has been to prevent COVID-19, a transferable virus spreading all over India and the world, rapidly; to protect and test a maximum number of people each day.

Swasthgram has set up a screening center in South Delhi's Ghitorni, covering nearby areas including Panchsheel Park, Sukhdev Vihar, Faridabad sector 21, Gharoli village, and numerous police stations located at Nizammudin, Lodhi Road, Vasant Vihar, Mehrauli, Lado Sari, others. Elaborating on how a team of 150 lab technicians, 50 doctors and over 500 volunteers is helping the government in its fight against coronavirus, Mr Bhatnagar said,

We have five teams that work on the field and cover varied locations daily. Our trained health volunteers are visiting homes in close by localities, creating awareness and distributing pamphlets regarding dos and don'ts for residents and people involved in providing essential services like groceries, medicines, banks, among others. Additionally, during the sanitisation activity where we disinfect public places and homes, we have been doing announcements, educating people about the important preventive and precautionary measures.

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Swasthgram team disinfecting houses in South Delhi's Ghitorni

Validating Swasthgram's work of disinfecting public places, a senior police official from MG Road police station said,

The team often comes to disinfect our booth. Though they don't have a fixed schedule as in they will come every day in the morning or twice in a week, so far they have come here thrice or more.

Similar feedback was shared by Rajveer Singh, a head constable at Vasant Vihar police station. He said,

The team comes every alternate day. We haven't requested them for disinfecting the place, they do it willingly and on their own.

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Awareness and education are one side of the coin, the other side calls for screening of people so as to get clarity on the gravity of the situation. For screening, just like the government of India, Swasthgram has resorted to thermal scanning, a process of detecting radiation. If someone has a fever- one of the symptoms of coronavirus, thermal screening will detect them and they can further be tested for coronavirus.

Talking about how the foundation has undertaken thermal screening, a practice limited to airports, to recognise suspected cases of coronavirus, Mr Bhatnagar said,

For a diverse setting, thermal screening has been the first go-to method to screen people and was adopted by the government of India as well as courthouses, railways stations, hotels, and other places. In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, where social distancing and proper hand washing can't be stressed enough, it is difficult to isolate undiagnosed cases. Hence, the go-to method of thermal screening filters susceptible cases who are then approached with differential diagnosis in mind by the medical staff.

This way the team claims to have reached out to over 2 million people, conducted screening of over 5,000 individuals, and disinfected 10,000 homes and public places like police stations, banks, grocery shops, among others.

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We have sanitised the entire Ghitorni Village of Vasant Vihar Taluk in South West Delhi which has a population of 14,893 (Census 2011). According to a government notification dated March 27, hand sanitisers and masks will be treated as essential commodities till June 30. Considering the same, we manufactured hand spray sanitisers and distributed 1,000 bottles for free to the people in need. Going forward, we plan to continue with the existing initiative and may take-up the task of providing face masks either for free or at a nominal cost, said Mr Bhatnagar while signing off.