VIJAYAWADA: Following an employee of the AP Secretariat tested positive for coronavirus, officials of the medical and health department have decided to conduct Covid-19 test on all the staff. As part of the drive, four special teams of the medical and health department collected samples from the employees of home, revenue and other departments housed in the second block of the Secretariat on Tuesday.
Out of the 420 employees registered to undergo Covid screening test, samples were collected from around 350. It is expected to take four to five days to cover all the 2,500-odd employees (regular, contract and outsourcing) in the five blocks of the State Secretariat.
Earlier, an employee of the agriculture department, who returned from Hyderabad recently, tested positive. However, as he resumed duties in the Secretariat before the result of the test results came, the government conducted sanitisation at the Secretariat, restricted entry of employees into blocks three and four and provided work from home option for the agriculture department employees for two weeks.
However, following an appeal by the Secretariat Employees Association president K Venkatrami Reddy to screen all the staff as a precautionary measure, medical and health department officials have decided to conduct Covid test on all the Secretariat employees.