Fighting Covid-19 in the countryside may have been a herculean task for medical experts, but people living in this tiny village, hardly 40 kilometres away from Vijayawada, have successfully kept the coronavirus at bay. The village of 1,030 people has not recorded a single Covid-19 case ever since the start of the pandemic 14 months ago.

Duggiralapadu village, under G Konduru mandal in Krishna district, managed to stay Covid-free even during the first wave of the pandemic. And they have held on to that ‘record’ in the ongoing second wave too, which has wreaked havoc across the country including Andhra Pradesh, by keeping the virus away from the village boundaries through sheer determination, awareness and daily sanitation of all streets.

In March 2020, when the first wave of the pandemic was just setting in, the villagers held a meeting and decided to take steps to ward off the novel coronavirus.

Sanitation drive taken up daily in AP village Everyone took a pledge to follow ‘Covid-19 appropriate behaviour and protocols’.

Besides ensuring precaution for themselves by dutifully wearing masks, they also took up sanitation drive all over the village on a daily basis, which they have continued. The village panchayat procured a power sprayer along with a tank to spray sodium hypochlorite in the streets twice a day. Local youths formed teams to help in the sanitation drive.

Village sarpanch Jada Rambabu toldTOIthat everyone in the village felt that preventing the spread of Covid-19 was important. “We collectively took a decision to implement strict rules. Celebrations and public gatherings are completely prohibited in our village. Salesmen and street vendors are known to spread the disease from one village to the other. We have prohibited the street vendors from entering our village,” Rambabu said.

The villagers also prohibited relatives from visiting them. Fun gatherings were also banned. They kept guard even when the first wave subsided and people in other areas threw caution to the wind. “A special quarantine facility has been set up in the village where patients with fever are kept. Health workers and volunteers conduct door-todoor surveys every fortnight to assess the health condition of the elderly and high-risk people,” Rambabu added.

IT and industries minister Mekapati Gowtham Reddy recently tweeted and appreciated the efforts of the villagers in keeping Covid-19 at bay. He also asked people in other villages to derive inspiration from Duggiralapadu and contain the pandemic.
“Stay home, stay safe is the only slogan we are implementing. We avoid going to other villages and towns as we may get infected. We will implement the guidelines till this pandemic is wiped out. Nothing is more important than our lives,” said Majji Satyanarayana, one of the villagers.

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