Eleven new cases of coronavirus were reported from Mumbai’s Dharavi on Thursday, taking the total number of infections in the area to 71, official said.
Eight people have died of Covid-19 so far in Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest shantytowns.
Out of the 11 new cases, four new were reported from Mukund Nagar, two each from Social Nagar and Rajiv Nagar and one each from Sairaj Nagar, Transit Camp and Ramji Chawl, civic officials said.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant commissioner of the G/North Ward said. “As of now we have targeted the five red zones in Dharavi and screening procedure is going on as per red zones. In this screening, 113 people have been identified and 85 samples have been collected. New cases have been reported from these localities only.”
He further said high-risk symptomatic patients were institutionally quarantined, and low risk, asymptomatic patients were home quarantined.
To ensure the strict implementation of restrictions in a particular area, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is providing grocery packets to residents. Each packet contains 3 kg of rice, 2 kg of dal, sugar, salt and 250 gm of tea.
Out of the total 71 cases, highest 18 positive cases have been reported from Mukund Nagar area of Dharavi, eight from Social Nagar, seven from Muslim Nagar and five from Dr. Baliga Nagar localities.
The civic body has prepared a quarantine centre in municipal school with 600 beds and at Rajiv Gandhi Sports Complex with 300 beds. In addition to that, the BMC also acquired Sai Hospital with 51 beds capacity with its medical staff.
The Dharavi slums spread over 240-hectare have 850,000 residents and a population density of 66,000 per sq km, making it one of the more cramped spaces in Mumbai, the world’s fifth most densely populated city.
Activists and health workers had expressed concerns over how social distancing is practically impossible in an area where on an average of 10-12 people stay in each of 57,000 housing units measuring around 250 sq ft.
Maharashtra continues to have the highest number of Covid-19 cases in India with over 3,000 after 165 new cases were recorded since Wednesday night.
