On Wednesday, with 66 new cases, the COVID-19 tally of Dharavi rose to 1,028 whereas the death toll due to the pandemic in the area rose to 40 from 31. According to a BMC official, the nine deaths had taken place on different dates but the information was sorted on Tuesday.
The cases were reported from Matunga Labour camp, 90-feet road, 60-feet road, Kumbharwada, Transit Camp, Cross Road, Naik Nagar and some other localities in Dharavi.
Dharavi, which is spread over 2.4 sq km is home to nearly 60,000 families and 8.5 lakh people. Dharavi is Asia's largest slum and is among the most densely packed settlements. As per data, nearly, 84 per cent of the COVID-19 cases in Dharavi have been reported from congested areas.
An Inter-Ministerial Central had visited the area on May 8 and had suggested for a different approach to curb the spread of the virus in the slum pockets. The team had also asked BMC to send more people to institutional quarantine to stop the spread of the virus.
The BMC is currently tracing three contacts for each infected person but Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal has recently instructed the civic officials to increase it to six contacts per patient and even more in Dharavi.
“We are shifting more people from the slums into institutional quarantine and expanding our contact tracing. For example, earlier, if a person from the slum settlement tested positive for coronavirus, his immediate family members and neighbours were marked as high risk and shifted to institutional quarantine. But now, we are including everyone from the cluster in the list who used the community toilet that was used by the positive patient,” Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner, G-North Ward told The Indian Express.
Two weeks ago, the Central Government's assessment team had warned BMC that its usual COVID-19 containment strategy won't work in Dharavi. As a result, the civic body has been mooting on reorganising the containment zones in Dharavi. The plan is to group together individual slum pockets and form a high-risk zone. So far, the civic body has identified thirteen such zones.
As per civic officials, the local corporator, MP or MLA can assign community leaders and volunteers, to these high-risk zones. The local leaders will assist the BMC to reach areas that they have so far been unable to tackle. They will bridge the gap between the BMC and the resident.
BMC To Add 200 Beds Daily As Mumbai Prepares For More COVID-19 Cases
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