600 students to join 10-day Covid screening drive

NOIDA: Around 600 student volunteers will join the health department’s special Covid screening drive in Gautam Budh Nagar district on Thursday. The drive will continue for the next 10 days and the department will also depute over 1,500 surveillance teams to carry out tests.
For smooth functioning of the massive drive, the GB Nagar district administration has also approached the National Service Scheme, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, Yuvak Mandal Dal and National Cadet Corps seeking help.
District magistrate (DM) Suhas LY said that a demand for identifying 1,000 volunteers was raised over the past one week and the volunteers were given training on Wednesday via video conferencing. “Unlike healthcare workers, students will not be put on the frontline but would act as a cruc-ial support system. They have been roped in to intensify the surveillance and will also help paste posters outside the houses of positive patients and their immediate contacts among other initiatives,” he said.
The move comes after a recent meeting of senior officials of the state government with health officials of GB Nagar and Ghaziabad districts reiterated the need to seek support from students’ organisation to scale up preparedness.
Elaborating on the same, officials said that around 300 volunteers will be deputed in Dankaur and Jewar development blocks and they will interact with residents.
Anil Kumar Singh, chief development officer of GB Nagar, said that students have been trained for field surveillance activity while taking all precautions. “We would deploy them in supporting roles such as data entry, maintaining records, field visits and public announcements among others.”
Around 65 students have also agreed to work at the primary health centres. They will note down details of people reporting symptoms and send a compiled list to the health department by 4pm daily.
Sheela Gupta, district National Service Scheme programme officer, said that 75 students have enrolled for the drive. “NCC students have also joined in as Covid warriors,” Gupta said.
Gaurav Singh Raghav, district youth coordinator of NYKS said that 125 students have enrolled themselves for the drive. “They will mainly distribute awareness posters among villagers,” he said.