As the World shrinks to Global Village it also brings geographical boundaries much closer, with today’s latest technologies at one hand travel and communication have become so easy on the other hand with the use of these resources epidemics have found their new ways to spread. The same has been the case in the spread of Novel Coronavirus 2019. Which initially no one realized that it could spread to over 100 countries and could infect more than two hundred thousand people.
Situation: Sindh and Hyderabad
The news made headlines on the 1st of March 2020, that a youth returning from Iran has been infected by Coronavirus and Pakistani authorities have confirmed the First Case of Corona Virus in the Country. As of today (i.e. 14 March 2020) so fare 14 cases are reported positive in Karachi all these cases are those who return from abroad. Out of these, 2 patients have been recovered and discharged from hospitals.
As per un-confirmed /social media reports, one case is also reported in Hyderabad who is under treatment. He/She is said to return from Iran. As per local sources, Govt. of Sindh has also reserved a walled colony in the out-skirt area of Sukkur to be used as an isolation area for expected cases and/or quarantine place. It shall be noted that the majority of the people of North Sindh are traveling to Iran for religious reasons. As per confirmed news, a total of 308 people were moved from the Taftan Border to the quarantine facility in Sukkur. They will be kept here for the next 14 days. If they test negative for coronavirus, they will be allowed to leave.
Govt. of Sindh Advisory and Actions
GoS has called a meeting of Taskforce formed for the Coronavirus on Saturday and issues directions related to banning on all types of public gatherings. Besides, the government has established isolation wards in around 12 large hospitals of Karachi, Jamshoro, and Nawabshah.
Following this meeting, the district governments have issued the notices to all line department and public circulars and also have canceled the permissions issued for the festival, public conferences, and also the marriages.
RDF Actions
Keeping in view the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus, Research and Development Foundation initiated its rapid campaigns to spread awareness about Novel Corona Virus 2019. These campaigns are aimed to educate people about good practices to prevent the spread of the Virus.
IEC Material
The Project team of Jamshoro and Sanghar, along with the RDF head office, took lead on drafting out some awareness material for the campaigns. With a high level of commitment, a simple and concise material was developed within a day and distributed among different RDF teams.
Jamshoro: Just a day after the news was brock about the first case of coronavirus in Pakistan.
The RDF team of jamshoro distributed face masks among the youth of Jamshoro. The RDF team Jamshoro along with Youth Advisory Board, Empower Youth for Work, arranged an awareness session at Innovation Hub- session was attended by 44 youth leaders and some community members. The aim of the session was not only to educate participants about the Novel Corona Virus but also to equip youth leaders with the right knowledge and skills to carry out small awareness sessions in their communities. In this way, it is planned that these youth leaders will further spread the information in their communities and the knowledge will be cascade down to grass root level.
The session at Innovation Hub Jamshoro was conducted by Dr. Gulzar Usman, who is currently working as Assistant Professor in the Community Medicine department and also a researcher and social activist. He highlighted the importance of prevention in any epidemic, said, Viruses like Corona Virus, are incurable but there is one thing that you can do and that is prevention, with good prevention practices you can reduce Virus spread chances to the minimal level.
Dr. Gulzar also educated youth about different myths and stressed that, when it comes to coronavirus, youth should not believe in home remedies like eating onion or its seed. He said that there is lots of information on the web about coronavirus but I will advise you to trust only the authentic source of information like the World Health Organization. Dr. Gulzar demonstrated how to wear mask properly and also some hygiene practices like washing hands or how to cough when you are surrounded by other people.
Free masks were distributed among all the participants. In the end, Youth asked different questions and expresses their thoughts about myths and real information.
Sanghar:
At Sanghar, the session was arranged by the RDF team working in Children Safety and environment Conversation Project.
The session was attended by more than 50 participants from different villages. After the first session in Khipro on 2nd March, RDF teams have arranged more than 20 awareness sessions in different districts of Sindh,
Including Sanghar, Mirpur Khas, Tando Allahyar, Tando Aadam, Jamshoro and other districts where RDF is implementing its projects. In just one-week time RDF teams have been able to conduct more than 30 awareness sessions attended by hundreds of community members in different parts of Sindh province of Pakistan.