Mumbai: Study fails to find reason for irregular ward-wise Covid-19 cases

Commuters at Andheri railway station on Tuesday. Andheri, along with Jogeshwari and Vile Parle, has reported a high number of cases so far. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

The findings of a study to find why some areas are reporting more COVID-19 cases than others has remained inconclusive, and now the BMC is dependent on the serosurvey to understand the situation and tackle further spread. Seroprevalence studies are conducted to get evidence of past exposure to the virus and to know the spread of the infection in the community.

On May 13, mid-day had published a report on the comparison between the first and the second waves in terms of cases and deaths. Also, some wards were found to have reported a high number of cases during both outbreaks despite having less population. Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani had instructed to find the exact reason behind the difference in cases among all 24 wards.

P North ward (Malad) saw a massive rise in infections in the second wave. Pic/Satej Shinde

"The study reported multiple reasons, like some wards conducted more number of tests, some have a higher population. Some wards registered more cases, but have fewer fatalities, while some have a high test positivity rate. No specific reason was found across the wards," said Kakani.

K West ward (Jogeshwari, Andheri, Vile Parle) has reported most cases so far, at 54,000, while neighbouring K East ward (Jogeshwari, Andheri, Vile Parle) has logged 45,000 infections. However, compared to the cases, the fatality rate of these wards were low - 1.5 per cent in K West and 2.5 per cent in K East. On the contrary, B ward, which reported merely 3,698 cases, has a fatality rate of 5 per cent, while C ward, with 6,494 cases, has a fatality rate of 4.5 per cent.

With a population of 10 lakh, P North ward (Malad) saw a massive rise in infections in the second wave and non-slum areas reported the maximum number of cases. P South (Goregaon) and H West (Bandra, Khar, Santacruz) registered massive growth in cases in the second outbreak. Kurla (L ward) is the second-largest ward with a population of 9.33 lakh and out of these barely 15 per cent reside in non-slum areas. But in the second wave, 90-95 per cent of cases were from residential complexes. But in M East and B wards, where slums and congested structures occupy 99 per cent area, the number of cases was much lower than the other wards.

Now, the BMC awaits the result of a fifth serosurvey, which it started on August 12, with a random collection of 8,000 samples from slum and non-slum areas.
"The survey will be conducted amid the warning of the third wave. The vaccination drive is also going on. So it will be important to know the antibody levels in the community. It will help to tackle the pandemic," said Kakani.