6 new cases in Dharavi, 1 more death
Dharavi, India’s largest slum, saw six new cases of Covid-19 and one death on Wednesday, bringing the tally to 13 cases and two deaths.
A 64-year-old patient, who was admitted with fever, cough and breathlessness on Tuesday died the same day, but his death was confirmed on Wednesday. The six new cases from the slum cluster includes a couple, a 59-year-old man and 49-year-old woman; a 50-year-old cleaner, 64-year-old patient who died and two men aged 25 and 35. The cleaner used to work in KEM Hospital in Parel, while the 25-year-old resides in Mukund Nagar area and the 35-year-old is resident of Dhanwada chawl. According to BMC, none of them had travel history.
The police and the civic body have also tracked 20-25 people from Dharavi, who had attended the Tabligi Jamaat event in Delhi and quarantined them. Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’s G north ward, said, “The police traced around 20-25 Tabligi Jamaat attendees, based on the list they received from the Centre. None has tested positive yet.’’
Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Wednesday, the BMC said it has identified a quarantine facility for around 11,000 people. The BMC has been scouting for space to quarantine those who live in small houses, where isolation is not possible. Till now, 900 such people have been identified.
The 240-hectare slum pocket has 850,000 residents and a population density of 66,000 per square kilometre, making it one of the more cramped spaces in Mumbai, the world’s fifth most densely populated city. Activists and health workers had expressed concerns over how social distancing is practically impossible in an area where an average of 10-12 people stay in each of 57,000 housing units measuring around 250 sq ft.
However, BMC, which runs the city’s nodal health department, said on Friday that its officers had a containment plan in place for Dharavi almost a month ago. “We ran a house-to-house survey to get the actual figure of the slum dwellers to keep our amenities ready,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner (health), BMC, told HT last week. “This helped us list high-risk people living with co-morbid issues such as cardiac ailments, respiratory problems, hypertension and diabetes, among others.”
HT had reported on Friday that a group of 800 community health volunteers is in place. The first batch of 200 was trained by the BMC, and they are training 600 more to sensitise others.