An 80-year-old man died in Mumbai’s Dharavi out of coronavirus. This is the fourth death in the area, which is known to be Asia’s largest slum.
The state medical council officials on Saturday began door-to-door testing of nearly a million residents of Dharavi.
Dharavi recorded its first covid-19 case on 1 April. The area has reported 28 positive cases of coronavirus cases till now.
An estimated 700,000 to 1 million people live crammed in Dharavi – a roughly five-square-kilometre maze of narrow lanes, ramshackle buildings, shanties and open sewers.
Many Officials and health workers say it would be difficult to contain the covid19 if it spread in a slum like Dharavi where eight to 10 people often share a room.
The slum, spread over 613 hectares and with population running in lakhs, has single or multi-storey houses located in narrow lanes and common toilets, making social distancing impossible.
Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad, who represents the Dharavi Assembly constituency, said, “We have undertaken every measure including screening residents for symptoms, disinfection and the police are doing contact tracing of the deceased. But Dharavi’s daily wage workers have lost livelihood during coronavirus while the industries located inside have been in losses for more than a year now. We are providing ration to all card holders and have requested government to provide ration to non-card holders as well. I have directed ration shop managers to give time slots to families so that there is no crowding outside the shop.
Tope also said the authorities will use drones to spray disinfectants in Dharavi. He added that the drones will be used by Mumbai Police for “effective” implementation of the lockdown in densely populated areas.
