GUJRAT: Some 1300 teachers mainly from colleges and schools have so far gone through the Covid-19 screening through smart sampling conducted by the local health authorities during the last one week.

Though results in some cases were awaited, authorities said a vast majority of them were negative.

At least 2,000 members of faculty and administrative staff of the University of Gujrat will also be screened in a drive set to be launched from Monday (today).

A senior official in the district administration said that almost 400 members of teaching and other staff of government colleges and some 900 teachers and other staff of government schools had been screened in the last one week through random and smart sampling ahead of likely reopening of educational institutions in the country.

He said smart sampling of school and college teachers had been done on the direction of the the education department and the drive might be accelerated following the announcement of schedule of reopening of educational institutions.

On the other hand, he said, smart sampling of barbers, beauticians, fruit and vegetable vendors had also been done. The health teams also conducted random testing at shopping malls, markets and banks and found four people infected with Covid-19. They included three bank employees and a staff member of an educational institution.

An official of the local health department told Dawn since the number of staff at public sector educational institutions in the district was around 15,000 — 10,000 of schools, 2500 of colleges and as many of UoG — they might not be able to conduct screening of all due to time constraint. “However, efforts will be made for maximum testing prior to resumption of academic activities.”

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2020