5 new cases, 1 death: Dharavi remains in red zone
MUMBAI: One more person has died in Mumbai’s Dharavi of the coronavirus disease and five other new cases of the infection have surfaced in the area, Asia’s largest slum, where up to 25 residents were identified as having attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi last month and quarantined.
The overall tally in the densely packed neighbourhood is two deaths and 13 cases of infection.
A 64-year-old man, who was hospitalised with fever, cough and breathlessness on Tuesday, died the same day, but his death was confirmed only on Wednesday as being due to Covid-19.
The five other new cases from the slum cluster include a couple, a 59-year-old man and 49-year-old woman; a 50-year-old cleaner who used to work in KEM Hospital in Parel; a man aged 25 who resided in the city’s Mukund Nagar and a 35-year-old resident of Dhanwada chawl.
According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), none of them had a recent travel history.
The police and the civic body have also tracked 20-25 people from Dharavi who attended the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi, and quarantined them. Hundreds of infections have been traced to the Islamic missionary group’s mid-March congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin Basti, which has emerged as India’s biggest coronavirus hotspot.
“The police traced around 20-25 Tabligi Jamaat attendees, based on the list they received from the Centre. None has tested positive yet,’’ said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’s G North ward.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the BMC said it had
DHARAVI, SPREAD OVER 240 HECTARES, HAS 850,000 RESIDENTS AND A POPULATION DENSITY OF 66,000 PER SQUARE KILOMETRE, MAKING IT ONE OF THE MORE CRAMPED SPACES IN MUMBAI
identified a quarantine facility for around 11,000 people. The BMC has been scouting for space to quarantine those who live in small houses, where isolation is not possible. Until now, 900 such people have been identified.
Dharavi, spread over 240 hectares, has 850,000 residents and a population density of 66,000 per square kilometre, making it one of the more cramped spaces in Mumbai, the world’s fifth most densely populated city. Activists and health workers said social distancing was practically impossible in an area where an average of 10-12 people stay in each of 57,000 housing units measuring around 250 sq ft.
BMC, which runs the city’s nodal health department, said on Friday that its officials had prepared a containment plan ifor Dharavi almost a month ago.
“We ran a house-to-house survey to get the actual figure of the slum dwellers to keep our amenities ready,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner (health), BMC, told HT. “This helped us list high-risk people living with co-morbid issues such as cardiac ailments, respiratory problems, hypertension and diabetes, among others.”
HT had reported on Friday that a group of 800 community health volunteers was in place for Dharavi. The first batch of 200 volunteers was trained by the BMC, and they in turn are training 600 more Dharavi locals to sensitise others in the community about Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.