Two more cases in Dharavi, ministers visit slum cluster
Mumbai: Two more people tested positive for Covid-19 in Dharavi on Tuesday, taking the total number of cases of the coronavirus disease in Asia’s largest slum to seven.
The two were the 80-year-old father and 49-year-old brother of a 30-year-old woman who tested positive on Saturday, said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of Mumbai’s G/ North Ward where Dharavi is located. “In tracing of high-risk contacts it was found that they are the father and brother of the 30-year-old woman.”
All three patients are residents of Dharavi’s Dr Baliga Nagar area. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has already sealed Dr Baliga Nagar, where Dharavi’s first Covid-19 patient, a 56-year-old garment shop owner, was detected last month. He succumbed to the virus. The colony he lived in has eight buildings with 308 flats and 91 shops, which have all been sealed.
All 29 high-risk contacts of the two Covid-19 patients detected on Tuesday are being tested and essential supplies like food and medicines will be provided to them by the BMC, which has quarantined 3,250 residents of the densely populated slum in the Rajiv Gandhi Sports complex in Dharavi.
On Tuesday, state health minister Rajesh Tope, and local MLA and school education minister Varsha Gaikwad visited the quarantine facility in the sports complex and the Dharavi police station to assess the situation. Tope and Gaikwad discussed the outbreak of the deadly virus in Dharavi with the police and civic staff
Shiv Sena Lok Sabha MP Rahul Shewale wrote to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday, urging him to impose a strict lockdown in the entire Dharavi area.
“Lockdown is necessary because of the high population density in the area. In addition to that, civic body should take all the hospitals in Dharavi and convert them into a quarantine centre,” he said.
Shewale also suggested that BMC enhance its Covid-19 testing capacity and every person in the slum be tested for the disease.