BMC activates ‘Dharavi model’ to tackle measles
MUMBAI: Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum pocket in G (north) ward, which had won accolades from the World Health Organisation (WHO) during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, is leaving no stone unturned in dealing with the measles outbreak.
Prashant Sapkale, assistant commissioner G (north) ward and Dr Virendra Mohite, medical officer of health (MOH), have stepped in with alacrity to nip the measles outbreak in the bud.
Around 450 medical practitioners of the Mahim Dharavi General Practitioners’ Association, who had championed the cause of the slum-dwellers during the first wave of the contagion, have been roped in along with 268 anganwadi workers and 69 school staff to deal with the virus.
“We have the progressive data from September 15 and out of 2,15,628 houses surveyed, we found 59 fever cases with rashes during a house-to-house survey. Five of them were diagnosed positive. All of them have recovered. There is no hospitalisation of such patients and no death was recorded in Dharavi,” Dr Mohite said.
Dharavi, which has around a population of 5 lakh and around 46,000 children in the age group of 0 to 5 years, has five health posts, each catering to 1 lakh people.
Each health post consists of one assistant medical officer and an ANM, a coordinator with community health volunteers (CHVS) and Asha workers working under them, who in turn monitor a group of 3,000 people each day.
“The community health volunteers’ daily work is to cover 150 houses and do routine surveillance,” Mohite added.
The medical officer said that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has roped in Swach Mumbai Prabodhan Abhiyan workers, who are engaged in door-to-door collection of garbage, to also distribute pamphlets to create awareness.
The BMC officials will focus on two aspects in Dharavi to control the measles outbreak. First, strengthen house-tohouse surveys to detect more fever with rashes cases and administer Vitamin A doses and the second is to look into the vaccination cover of due beneficiaries.
“On an average, we conduct 20 vaccination camps each day, based on routine immunisation sites, on the field. When we get a fever with a rash case in an area, we conduct camps in those pockets,” said Mohite.
The G (north) ward’s focus is to ensure that the Measles-rubella course is administered at nine months and vitamin A is given to boost immunity.
“The private medical practitioners, anganwadi workers and school staff have been appealed to report to MOH in case of suspected measles cases,” said Mohite.
In one anganwadi, there are 60 to 70 children. Mothers are being asked to bring their children up to 5 years of age for vaccination. “The war room will book hospital beds, provide information and their numbers will be displayed on banners at 50 spots. Ambulances have been kept ready,” Mohite said.