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Business News/ News / India/  In India's cheek by jowl city, covid-care centres have a new address
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In India's cheek by jowl city, covid-care centres have a new address

Dharavi is home to nearly 8.5 lakh people living in cramped conditions in an area that spans about 0.83 square miles
  • Maharashtra's tally of covid-19 cases has touched 8068 - the highest in the country
  • For the Maharashtra government containing the spread of coronavirus in the slums is proving to be a tough task. (Photo: Bloomberg)Premium
    For the Maharashtra government containing the spread of coronavirus in the slums is proving to be a tough task. (Photo: Bloomberg)

    MUMBAI: Thirty-eight year-old Taufiq Siddiqui, a resident of Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, keeps a list of grocery items on his phone. But when he steps out to shop, he buys only one item at a time, Siddiqui confessed. This, he says, gives him an excuse to step out of his shanty and breathe freely. Siddiqui's home comprises 220 sq.ft near Dharavi's Jama Masjid that he shares with his 12-member family. Amid the lockdown, he says, finding a place to even sit has become tough.

    Given that practicing self quarantine and social distancing are practically unviable for Mumbai’s slum dwellers like Siddiqui, the state government has booked rooms in local lodges, and turned sports complexes and schools into covid-19 care facilities. So far around 1,300-high risk individuals have been sent to these facilities.

    "We have rented 42,000 lodge rooms across Mumbai especially for this purpose and are housing them either in these rooms or large halls, away from the community," Rajesh Tope, Maharashtra health minister hsd told Mint in a recent interview.

    But the state’s resources are limited. Among Mumbai’s many slums, Dharavi, which is home to nearly 8.5 lakh people living in cramped conditions in an area that spans about 0.83 square miles, reported its first case on 1 April. In 26 days since then, the slum has seen cases rise to 275 with 14 deaths.

    For the Maharashtra government containing the spread of coronavirus in the slums is proving to be a tough task.

    "Now the issue is only with the slums where the numbers of positive cases are increasing rapidly," Tope said, adding that the state was ensuring that containment zones are completely sealed off but cases have failed to show signs of declining.

    With 440 new cases reported on Sunday, Maharashtra's tally of covid-19 cases has touched 8,068 - the highest in the country.

    “We are trying to contain the coronavirus spread at its present levels with door-to-door testing in the affected clusters. We are tracing and secluding as many contacts, as quickly as possible," said Suresh Kakani, additional municipal commissioner (health) at BMC. "We are no longer allowing home quarantine for slum dwellers and are putting all high-risk covid-19 contacts into institutional quarantine facilities. Many other such slums in the financial capital, including Govandi, Byculla and Kurla have also become hotspots."

    Besides small lodges, the BMC has also converted some municipal schools and sports complexes near the affected slums into quarantine facilities.

    For Dharavi, the municipal body has created a 600-bed facility at a government school in the area, while another 300-bed capacity has been made available at the Rajiv Gandhi District Sports Complex.

    "As of now, we have a total capacity of 2,300 beds reserved for high-risk contacts in Dharavi, including small lodges and community halls. We will be increasing it to 3,000 beds in a few days as another 700-bed facility is being created at Manohar Joshi College in Dharavi," said Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner for G-North ward of Mumbai, where Dharavi is located.

    Till date, the state government has identified 49 containment zones in Dharavi, which include five high-risk zones - Mukund Nagar, Madina Nagar, Muslim Nagar, Social Nagar, and Kalyanwadi. The high-risk zones alone, according to Dighavkar, comprise 1.25 lakh people.

    A team of 24 private local medical practitioners, along with 25 nurses and 50 community health volunteers, have been tasked with screening contacts in these high-risk zones.

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    Published: 28 Apr 2020, 03:53 PM IST
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