How Borivli, Mulund and Kalbadevi kept cases to less than 25

Rigorous tracing helps these three wards contain the spread to limited pockets

Three wards in Mumbai which cover Borivli West in the western suburbs, Mulund in the eastern suburbs, and Marine Lines, Kalbadevi and Chira Bazaar in the island city have recorded less than 50 Covid-19 positive cases as of April 25, even as the number of cases recorded in the city in a single day on Sunday were 358, and the total cases in the city touched 5,407.

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The R-North ward (Borivli) has seen the lowest number of cases so far at 29, followed by T Ward (Mulund) with 32 cases, and C ward in south Mumbai with 33 cases. The numbers are despite the 60% of the R-North ward being occupied by slums and congested dwellings, and 41% of the C ward housing old chawls with common toilets. The T ward has 35% slum population. These wards have managed to contain their cases mainly due to concentration of the cases to one or two families, and a single large hotspot, instead of many small and periodic outbreaks of the virus. All three wards also got a breather of three to four days that allowed them chance to respond to the outbreak.

Sandhya Nandedkar, assistant municipal commissioner of R North ward, said, “We are taking all usual measures such as containment, quarantine, contact tracing, disinfection of common places such as toilets and slums. What has worked for my ward is that we have managed to contain all cases to a few small pockets where first Covid-19 patients were found.”

The first case was reported in the R-North ward on March 28, following which six cases were found in the same area of Ambawadi.

Following large scale quarantine and contact tracing, no new cases have been recorded so far.

Nandedkar said, “Most of my cases are restricted to three slum pockets, including Ambawadi. Some health workers were quarantined in the hospital itself, and did not infect anyone else.”

The health officer of C ward said, “We have got two large families that make up for 12 cases among the 33. The remaining cases have been restricted to families. We have 80% index patients, and remaining are contact patients restricted to a family in 28 pockets. None of our index patients transmitted the virus to others.”

The first case was recorded on March 27, following which a few lot of cases were recorded five or six days later.

In case of T ward, health officer Kishor Gandhi said, “My ward has only 10-11 high-risk contacts. The index patients in my ward did not transmit the virus to others. The transmission too has been within the family. Our cases are restricted to one big pocket called Ramgad slum, followed by small cases in Indira Nagar. We were able to successfully contain the outbreak to some areas. We also got some breathers of 2-3 days.” There are 17 containment zones in T ward.

The T ward banned sale of vegetables and fruits on footpaths throughout the ward after a vegetable vendor tested positive for the virus.

From the first day of the outbreak in Mumbai, in the beginning of March, the ward has been sanitising all community toilets in its slum pockets every few hours, with dedicated cleaners appointed at every toilet block.