Mumbai’s Dharavi locality continued to be on the boil on the coronavirus front, as the number of Covid-19 deaths rose to seven and five more fresh infected cases reported from Asia’s largest slum.
Five fresh coronavirus cases were reported from Dharavi on Wednesday, taking the total number of infected cases to 60. In the last three days, three more fresh deaths were reported in the densely populated slum, where the total number of deaths has risen from four to seven.
All the five fresh infected cases were reported from Mukundnagar area. Of the newly infected, three are men – in the age group of 24 years to 38 years and two women aged 39 years and 47 years.
Of the fatalities in Dharavi, two each deaths have been reported from Dr Baliga Nagar and Kalyanwadi, while one death has been reported from Musilim Nagar, Social Nagar and Nehru Chawl.
Ever since the first few positive cases of Covid-19 were reported in Dharavi in the first few days of this month, there has been anxiety in the city health machinery which has been constantly monitoring the situation in this
slum. The health officials’ anxiety should be seen in the light of the fact that they apprehend community spread of the Coronavirus in this slum.
Since last week, health workers have been conducting door-to-door screening of all the Dharavi residents. Simultaneously, a team of local private doctors of Dharavi and civic medical staff have been checking temperature and enquiring the residents about their travel history.
Based on the surveys, local health workers, doctors and civic field workers have been submitting periodic reports to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) about the persons who have shown symptoms for coronavirus. “We have quarantined all those who have shown symptoms of the pandemic. We are continuing with the exercise of contact tracing of high risk contacts of new patients, “a BMC officer said.
In a related development, the city police are continuing to use drones to monitor the movement of people, if any, in the congested lanes of Dharavi, where the authorities have been enforcing a total lockdown.
Spread over 240 hectare area, Dharavi is located between Western Railway’s Bandra-Matunga and Central Railway’s Sion-Matunga stations in north-central Mumbai. It is home to over anywhere from 60,000 to 70,000 families.
Asia’s large slum has several business units -- right from textiles to pottery to fabrication to leather industry. Plastic recycling and garbage segregation too is done here. Mainly a hub of cottage industries, it has an estimated 5,000 business entities and 15,000 single-room factories.