Mumbai: Surge in COVID-19 cases at Dharavi triggers alarm bell for BMC

A COVID awareness drive underway at Dharavi on March 27. Pic/Shadab Khan

Dharavi is once again turning out to be a spot of bother for the BMC despite its intensified efforts on door-to-door screening and isolation of those with COVID symptoms. The slum cluster on Thursday recorded 99 positive cases, its daily highest in 11 months. The spread of infections in Dharavi has prompted the BMC to renew its focus on all slum pockets across the city.

"Last year early May, we had cases a little over 100 but since then this is the first time that the numbers have gone up. We are taking all the necessary measures and isolating people to ensure the virus doesn't spread," said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner.

The senior civic official said door-to-door screenings, testing, fever clinics are going on in the slum colony. "A huge turnout of around 500 beneficiaries was seen from Dharavi alone for the vaccination drive and our efforts are ongoing to vaccinate more eligible citizens," he said.

As anticipated by the civic body following a rise in cases in buildings, the pattern is repeating in non-gated neighbourhoods. Now, there are 70-odd slums and chawls housing about 3.5 lakh people in the city that are under containment measures. This increase in the number of micro-containment zones has come up in the last ten days from the earlier 53.

Despite their hard work, daily cases in Mumbai have remained over 10,000 for the past few days. "It is exhausting the health infrastructure," said a source. "Thus, the focus has again been shifted on to the slums, especially in areas of K east that comprise Andheri East, Jogeshwari East and Vile Parle East, L ward that cover Kurla and E ward with Byculla," added the source.

Even as the BMC had earlier cited studies to claim the presence of a high number of antibodies in slum dwellers, sources said it is not taking any chances this time.