Gandhi launches community level Corona awareness program in collaboration with NGOs

Hyderabad, 19^th March 2020: While there is more than adequate information available to the public on prevention and protection from CORONA(COVID-19) to almost everyone yet the dimension of personal hygiene is found to be relatively low amongst the rural population and others mainly slum who visit hospital and also use public transport daily.

City based NGOs, Helping Hand Foundation & Round Table India along with Ladies Circle (STALC151), have joined hands with Gandhi Hospital, the nodal centre for Corona Virus (COVID-19) in TS, to run a month-long, grass root level community level awareness campaign for educating visitors at Gandhi, other government hospitals, public transport points & slums.

Volunteers from the NGO will perform live skits & demonstrations using charts to show hand hygiene, cough & sneeze etiquettes, mask usage and disposal and protection from infected surfaces and how to maintain safe distances from people affected with cough.

The campaign was formally launched today at Gandhi Hospital by Dr. P. Shravan Kumar, Superintendent, Gandhi Hospital in presence of Dr. M.G. Krishnamurthy, HOD & Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology, Dr. Vinay Shekhar, HOD, General Medicine, Dr. Raja Rao, Professor of General medicine at Gandhi Hospital and other administrators of Gandhi Hospital and members of the NGOs.

The Focus of the drive will on the attenders, visitors, patients and general public who use public transport system and who are mainly for rural areas and slums and whose hygiene quotient is found to be low.

The month-long campaign will be run by a team of Eight volunteers of HHF trained by the Gandhi doctors, the volunteers will practically demonstrate good hygiene methods like the need for effective hand wash, cough & sneeze etiquettes, mask usage and disposal and avoiding littering on the streets and how to protect from infected surfaces

A daily roster of activities has been drawn and the campaign will start from 7.30am and cover one labour adda per day and after this the team will cover waiting halls and OPD area at Gandhi hospital attenders and thereafter in the 2^nd half of the day it will touch JBS, Secunderabad Railway station, MBS, Kachiguda and Nampally stations.

On Sundays the focus will be in slum areas, Aganwadis and Rythu bazars when most people are at home and come out to buy vegetables.

Dr. M.G. Krishnamoorthy, HOD & Professor of Respiratory Medicine & Pulmonology, Gandhi Hospital, said the Key focus of the campaign will be on prevention through good hygiene practises that are not only useful for preventing Covid-19 but even for others like H1N1 in the general population.

" We are making a modest attempt to reach out to the common man by doing live actionable skits on the street to create awareness and enhance their hygiene quotient, which will be very critical in the event of community level transmission said Mr. Mujtaba Hasan Askari, of Helping Hand Foundation, Dr. P. Shravan Kumar, Superintendent of Gandhi Hospital, appreciated the efforts of the HHF and said the awareness drive on hygiene within the hospital for a large number of attenders and visitors at Gandhi is an important measure in ensuring safety of all those who visit the hospital and emphasized that the team will use live and practical ways of demonstrating good hygiene practices.