Dharavi's journey to becoming Mumbai s COVID-19 hotspot

Mumbai, May 14 () Among the most populated andcongested areas of Mumbai, Dharavi may have had a delayedentry into the COVID-19 health crisis, but with over 1,000cases, it has certainly found itself in a precarious position.

In less than 45 days, Asia's largest slum has recorded1,028 cases and 40 deaths, indicating the extent and intensitywith which the virus has spread there.

With 66 fresh cases detected on Wednesday, Dharavi'sCOVID-19 tally crossed the 1,000 mark.

It has just been 43 days since the city's mostcongested ward detected its first case at Dr Baliga Nagar onApril 1, setting the alarm bells ringing for the city'sadministration.

The progression was, however, slow in the area and ittook a little over a fortnight for Dharavi to add 100 cases toits tally and by May 3, it crossed the 500 mark.

According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation'sdata till May 6, the doubling rate of COVID-19 cases inDharavi was six days and majority of the patients were in theage group of 31 to 40 years.

Located at the north end of the island city, Dharavihas a population of around 6.5 lakh and is spread over 2.5 sqkm area.

With a population density of 2,27,136 persons per sqkm, Dharavi is a sort of ticking time bomb for the civicadministration, which is working on a war footing to containthe pandemic, a health expert said.

According to BMC sources, the civic body has beensupplying essentials and medicine in 213 containment zones,which have reported coronavirus cases.

Raju Korde, president of Dharavi Punarvikas Samitisaid lack of proper sanitation facilities and crowded housingconditions were primary reasons for the spread in the area.

"Dharavi has small congested houses and narrow lanes.Hence, even if the BMC creates containment zones, it'simpossible to follow the norms of social distancing," Kordesaid.

Volunteers from the organisation were distributingsanitisers and immunity boosting homeopathy medicines toresidents, he said.

According to civic officials, Dharavi has around 225community toilets, 100 public toilets and 125 toilets built bythe Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority.

"As hundreds of people use common toilets in the area,the risk of coronavirus spread is high, which is why theselavatories have to be cleaned regularly," said a BMC officer.

Dharavi has nine municipal dispensaries, 50 privateclinics apart from fever clinics.

Altogether 47,500 people from the high-risk zones and1.25 lakh residents of containment zones of Dharavi have beenscreened so far, according to BMC data.

As per the data, around 4 lakh Dharavi residents havebeen screened with the help of 24 private practitioners. KK ARU VTVT VT