‘Dharavi model’ helps tame second Covid wave in the slum

After reporting up to 99 Covid-19 cases daily in April, Mumbai's slum colony of Dharavi has seen a gradual drop in single-day infections - below 5 - in the last couple of days with the tally of patients under treatment dropping to 50, marking a turnaround in the second wave.

The 'Dharavi model' of Covid-19 management and the vaccination drive have helped in successfully containing the second wave in the area, officials said.

A steady drop in coronavirus cases in Dharavi, a sprawling and congested shanty town which was once a Covid-19 hotspot, has brought huge relief to the civic authorities in Mumbai. BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) officials said the slum cluster, spread across 2.5 square km and located on the border of the island city, reported three and four cases on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, while Mumbai is still witnessing daily coronavirus cases in four digits.

They said Dharavi's active cases have come down to just 50 (6,398 of the total 6,802

Covid-19 patients have recovered, while 354 have died).

This was in sharp contrast to the adjoining Dadar and Mahim areas, which have 204 and 254 active cases, respectively.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus in April 2020, the slum-dominated area has reported 354 deaths (till May 26). Of those, 42 fatalities have been recorded since February 7, 2021, the officials said.

According to them, the daily Covid-19 cases in Dharavi started going up from mid

February, when Mumbai was hit by a second wave of the coronavirus infection.

Cases in the slum-dominated area rose significantly in March and peaked in April, when it reported the highest single-day spike of 99 cases on April 8.

The sharp rise in daily infections pushed the civic authorities to once again fall back on the "Dharavi model" which involved 4Ts - tracing, tracking, testing and treating - a strategy which was praised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) during the first wave of Covid-19.

"Despite a slow spread of the virus in December 2020 and early January 2021, we continued with comprehensive testing and tracking of cases in Dharavi," said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of G-North ward that houses Dharavi.

With the onset of the Covid19 second wave in February 2021, the Dharavi Model was activated again to stem the spread of the infection, he said.