Dharavi’s virus count crosses 1,000; toll at 40
66 NEW CASES ON WED Number of containment zones reduced, norms made stricter
With 66 new cases reported on Wednesday, Dharavi, India’s largest slum cluster in Mumbai, crossed the 1,000 mark for Covid-19 cases. The case count has touched 1,028, with 40 deaths.
The first case in Dharavi was reported on April 1. The area recorded 100 cases on April 17 and breached the 500-case mark on May 3 and 200-case mark by April 24. The toll in Dharavi also doubled in nine days from 20 deaths on May 3 to 40 as of May 13.
Mumbai reported highest single-day spike in the number of deaths with 40 deaths being reported on Wednesday, taking the total to 596. Overall, the city reported 800 cases on Wednesday, taking the total to 15,747.
In a change of strategy dictated by new Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) chief Iqbal Singh Chahal, the civic body has reduced the number of containment zones in Dharavi to 20 from 213 by merging smaller areas. Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of BMC’S G-north ward under which Dharavi falls, said, “We have clubbed the containment zones and we are also appointing citizens as volunteers to ensure people do not venture out of their houses in containment zones. We are distributing maximum number of food packets in Dharavi, considering the volume of detection is high.”
A total of 2,500 citizens identified as high-risk are under institutional quarantine facility. Chahal has also directed all ward officers to map high-risk areas within their containment zones and target slums and congested areas. These zones will have stricter rules for movement.
Other areas like Dadar and Mahim which also come under G-north ward have also seen a steady increase in number of cases. In Dadar, 133 cases along with seven deaths were reported as of Wednesday, followed by 155 cases in Mahim with seven deaths.
The number of cases in G-north ward now stands at 1,316, of which 1,028 cases are from Dharavi. Other administrative wards where cases have crossed the 1,000 mark include G-south ward consisting of Worli and Prabhadevi; and E ward, including Mazagaon, Byculla.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, a senior BMC official tested positive, following which he was sent into isolation. His close contact, an IAS officer from BMC, has been quarantined. The BMC has, however, not provided any figures on the total number of BMC officials who have tested positive.
Wednesday also saw a series of visits by top IAS officials, including Chahal, to several quarantine facilities set up by BMC, community kitchens where food is cooked for distribution to migrants and those in need of relief.
Chahal along with additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani visited several quarantine facilities, including the one at NSCI Worli and Race Course in Mahalaxmi where 300 beds for quarantining patients is set to come up. They also visited the MMRDA Grounds in Bandrakurla Complex, where 1,000 beds have been set up.
The newly appointed municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal issued new testing protocol on Wednesday wherein patients who have mild symptoms of Covid-19 do not require testing at the time of discharge, further adding that testing is mandatory only for discharging the patients who were critical.
In case of asymptomatic patients, the laboratories have been directed to test only those identified by fever clinics or outpatient sections of private and government hospitals.
Further, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said that no emergency surgery can be denied to patients by the doctors for want of Covid-19 testing. The BMC chief has also allowed home testing only in emergency cases. BMC, in a circular, said that it is issuing revised guidelines of testing by superseding all earlier circulars in light of the government of India and the state government issuing their revised discharge policy as per the categorisation of patients.
In a circular issued on Wednesday, BMC stated, “Testing of mild/very mild /pre-symptomatic cases shall not be required before the discharge if there are no symptoms seen on seventh, eighth and ninth days consecutively. In case of moderate symptomatic patients, testing shall not be required if the patient recovered clinically. Testing is required once before discharge in cases of critical patients and immune-compromised patients when they have no symptoms for three days.”
In the context of not denying urgent surgeries, the BMC circular has stated, “Only if there is a strong suspicion of Covid-19 in persons requiring elective surgery or surgery which can wait for 48 hours, a doctor can ask for Covid-19 test. No emergency surgeries should be denied to the patient for want of Covid-19 test.”
BMC has also asked laboratories to not inform the patients about test results without informing the civic body. The laboratories have been asked to report all positive cases immediately, within one hour of results so that contact-tracing may be initiated at the earliest.
For patients on regular haemodialysis, BMC has said that the test should not be asked as a routine before every procedure (dialysis). Contrary to the earlier directions by BMC last week, standard operating procedure issued by Chahal stated that only symptomatic patients who are tested have to be institutionally quarantined. Further, tests for all symptomatic patients can be done only if they have been referred by a registered medical practitioner. The circular mentions that pregnant women, even if asymptomatic, should be tested. The circular read, “Asymptomatic pregnant women should be tested in the facilities where they are expected to deliver .” Dr Sanjay Pattiwar, a public health consultant, said, “The revised guidelines will be helpful as the resources for testing and the infrastructure required are limited. However, considering the density and the parameters of Mumbai, I feel the Central government can also think of having specially dedicated testing for Mumbai in order to flatten the curve.”
NEW ICMR GUIDELINES