Dharavi reports 4th death; BMC starts screening 7L locals

Eleven days after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Dharavi on April 1, four people from India’s largest slum have succumbed to the disease. While the number

Eleven days after the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Dharavi on April 1, four people from India’s largest slum have succumbed to the disease. While the number of positive cases stood at 28, with no new cases on Saturday, an 80-year-old man died at Kasturba Hospital on Saturday. His 35-year-old daughter, too, had tested positive for Covid-19.

HT Image

Responding to the spread of the Sars-cov-2 virus in Dharavi, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has started screening around 7 lakh residents of the area – an exercise that is expected to take around two weeks to complete.

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 congested 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 live in each of 57,000 housing units measuring around 250 sqft.

The civic body has already planned a 1,000-bed quarantine facility in Dharavi, where those wanting institutional quarantine will be kept. Of these, 300 beds will be available at the Rajiv Gandhi District Sports Club and the remaining 700 are being planned at the Dharavi transit camp municipal school.

Explaining the action plan for Dharavi, Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, G/North ward under which Dharavi is located, said, “We have formed 10 teams to conduct screening of all residents in Dharavi. We are using 500 sets of personal protection equipment (PPE), 2,000 masks, and 18 thermal scanners for this purpose. Screenings are being done at Kalyanwadi, Mukund Nagar, Social Nagar, Muslim Nagar, Madina Nagar, etc.”

According to BMC officials, they are looking to screen around 7 lakh citizens in the coming two weeks for cough, cold and fever.

Dharavi has around 225 public or community toilets that are also being disinfected daily for which a special treatment solution and machine has been imported from New Zealand.

Two more individuals from Dharavi who had attended the Tablighi Jammat event in Delhi in March tested positive on Friday. Overall, the BMC has traced 25 people who had attended the event, however, in many of the cases, reports are still being awaited.