Rapid action plan for Mumbai suburbs

Civic chief IS Chahal will on Monday launch a rapid action plan (RAP) for the city’s suburbs to check the rise in the number of cases in areas such as Mulund, Bhandup,

Civic chief IS Chahal will on Monday launch a rapid action plan (RAP) for the city’s suburbs to check the rise in the number of cases in areas such as Mulund, Bhandup, Malad, Andheri, Borivli, Kandivli and Dahisar.

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The RAP has been modelled on the lines of the strategy that helped contain the spread in Worli and Dharavi. Additions have been made to these models for the suburbs to cater to residential buildings, as opposed to the slum settlements of Dharavi and congested settlements of Worli. As part of its RAP, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to start mobile fever clinics in ambulances in these areas. The mobile clinics will drive around through the day with a team of doctors, who will carry out door-to-door screening of residents, check for fever and other symptoms, co-morbidities, and collect swabs, if there is any suspected person.

Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani, in charge of BMC’s health department, said, “We will use a pulse oximeter in the suburbs and a thermal gun to screen patients. A team of doctors will go from door to door.”

A BMC official said, “We noticed the Worli and Dharavi models proved to be very effective. The first step is mobile fever clinics.” This will be followed by quarantining suspects, tracing contacts and quarantining them at home or in institutions.

Dharavi’s model of forging public private partnerships with various people’s organisations and non-government organisations to tackle staff crunch will be replicated in the suburbs too. “We are also opening up all channels of communication with residents, such as elected public representatives, citizens’ organisations, and NGOs, so we can reach more people,” Kakani said, adding, “I toured the area on Saturday and listed four to five important measures based on my observation. The idea of having mobile fever clinics is approaching residents in their homes, instead of these residents walking out of their home and coming to a fever clinic. Residents can also contact BMC’s war room and a house call can be made to the caller for screening.”

Dharavi screened a large number of persons in high risk groups – senior citizens and those with co-morbidity, and in fever clinics. After early detection, these were moved to institutional quarantine centres to reduce their contact with the community. Contact tracing and institutional quarantining of high-risk contacts was done on a large scale. Many new positive cases emerged in Dharavi from those people who were already in quarantine, and were already suspected.

Four wards in the suburbs, of P-North, R-Central and R-North, and T, corresponding to areas of Malad, Borivli, Dahisar, and Mulund, respectively have a doubling rate of less than 20 days. The P/North ward of Malad has 3,615 cases, R/Central has 1961, R/North has 1,349 cases, and Mulund has 1,797 cases, as of Sunday. In comparison, some of the wards earlier known for high number of cases, such as the G-South ward of Worli has 3,107 cases and H-E ward of Bandra (East) has 3154 cases. These wards in the suburbs also have a high number of active cases, in comparison to their total closed cases (cases that have had an outcome of discharge or death). While 65% of the total cases in Malad are active, 58% of cases are active in Bhandup.

Since June 1, Dharavi has consistently reported less than 30 cases per day, when it had reported as high as 94 cases in a single day in May. On Sunday, Dharavi recorded 12 new cases, and no deaths. While there are a total of 2,170 cases in Dharavi, 1,057 of these have been discharged. According to Press Information Bureau, Dharavi’s success model has been touted by government of India. A PIB release, said: “Being densely populated (2,27,136 persons/ sq. km), Dharavi had 491 cases in April 2020 with a 12% growth rate and a case doubling period of 18 days. The proactive measures adopted by BMC reduced the Covid-19 growth rate to 4.3% in May 2020 and further to 1.02% in June. These measures also ensured an improved case doubling time to 43 days in May 2020 and 78 days in June 2020.”

BMC relied on “four Ts – Tracing, Tracking, Testing and Treating” to put Dharavi’s high-cases in check, and 47,500 people were covered by doctors and private clinics in house-to-house screening, 14,970 people were screened with the help of mobile vans, and 4,76,775 were surveyed by BMC’s health staff.

Meanwhile, yet another BMC officer succumbed to Covid-19 on Sunday. He was an executive engineer with the storm water drainage (SWD) department.

Also, addressing 134 complaints of overcharging by 26 private hospitals, BMC has managed to reduce the disputed amount by ₹23.42 lakh. The total amount that was disputed by all the 134 complaints was ₹1.61 crore which was brought down to 1.38 crore.

Dismissing rumours of lockdown in Mumbai’s zone 7, which covers areas like Dahisar, Borivli and Kandivli, BMC clarified on Sunday that these are rumours and lockdown will only be implemented in containment zones. it mentioned that in cases where a sealed area has four separate adjoining roads, three will remain shut.