Apparently spurred by the “Dharavi” coronavirus success story, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday exhorted NGOs to form a link between the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and citizens form ward-wise committees to fight Covid-19 at the ground-level.
Addressing the BMC officials and representatives of NGOs through video-conferencing, the Chief Minister said: “The NGO should take an initiative to establish a permanent linking mechanism between the BMC administration and citizens. Together, BMC, NGOs and citizens can easily fight coronavirus in the metropolis”.
“The BMC is currently implementing the “chase the virus” strategy in some parts of the city. In places where the BMC is not involved in the “chase the virus” experiment, the BMC, NGOs and citizens can come together, undertake door-to-door visits and carry out tests to identify people showing Covid-19 systems. The State Government will provide the necessary help,” the Chief Minister.
Maintaining that success was guaranteed where there was consensus among the people about a particular issue, Uddhav said that he had issued a direction to the officials across the state to set up coronavirus vigilance committees at the village, taluka and district levels to fight the pandemic.
“If we are able to keep our house and surrounding areas clean, we will be able to defeat Coronavirus and monsoon-related diseases. For keeping rain- related diseases at bay during the monsoon, we have to lay stress on cleanliness. The NGOs should take lead createawareness of hygiene, wearing masks, sanitizers, etc especially in slums,” Uddhav said.
The Chief Minister appealed to NGOs to visit road, building and bridge constructions and take measures to disinfect water collected at these places.
“After visiting Dharavi in Mumbai, a central team had recommended that public toilets be cleaned periodically. After that, we undertook a massive drive in Dharavi and used to clear public toilets at least six times in a day. By disinfecting the public toilets, we checked the spread of coronavirus in a big way in Dharavi,” he said.
“All by itself, the BMC cannot fight Coronavirus alone. We need the cooperation of the NGOs in disinfecting public toilets and other places. The NGOs should also undertake door-to-door survey of slums in the city, identify people with Covid-19 symptoms and send to Coronavirus centres. If we are able to reach the people to hospitals in that Rs golden hour’, we will be able to save the lives of the people,” the Chief Minister said.
State Transport Minister Anil Parab, who was present at Uddhav’s interaction with the NGO representatives and BMC officials, said that there was a need to expand the existing “ward adoption” scheme.
Mumbai Municipal Commissioner I S Chahal, who was also present, said that frequent sanitation of public toilets played a vital role in arresting the spread of Covid-19 in Dharavi
It may be recalled that the BMC and the State Government successfully adopted “chase the virus” at Dharavi slum in north-central Mumbai where the authorities have contained the spread of virus to that extent that Asia’s largest slum reported just one fresh case on Tuesday. Of the total 2335 coronavirus patients, 1734 people have been completely cured. Dharavi has just 352 active cases now.
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 per cent 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.
Several challenges presented themselves to BMC in Dharavi where 80% population depends on community toilets. BMC adopted a model of actively following four T’s – Tracing, Tracking, Testing and Treating. This approach included activities like proactive screening. While 47,500 people were covered by doctors and private clinics in house-to-house screening, about 14,970 people were screened with the help of Mobile Vans, and 4,76,775 were surveyed by BMC health workers.
Fever clinics were set up for screening high risk categories such as elderly/senior citizens. This helped to screen 3.6 lakh people. Also, around 8246 senior Citizens were surveyed and as part of its policy of ‘Timely Separation’, they were separated from the other community to effectively limit the transmission of the disease. As of June 20, as many as 5,48,270 people had been screened in Dharavi. The suspected cases were shifted to well organized Covid Care Centres and Quarantine Centres.
To tackle the issue of manpower to carry out proactive screening in high risk zones, BMC forged strategic public private partnerships in containment measures and all available ‘private’ practitioners were mobilized. BMC provided the private doctors with PPE Kits, thermal scanners, pulse Oxymeters, masks and gloves and started Door-to-Door screening in high risk zones and all suspects were identified.
BMC encouraged all practitioners to open their clinics to attend to the patients and communicate to BMC in case any Covid-9 suspects were found. BMC sanitised the clinics of the private practitioners and provided them all necessary support. To augment health infrastructure in the city, all private hospitals were brought onboard and acquired for treatment.