Dharavi in Mumbai reported 15 new cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 43. However, nine of these were already under quarantine for being the high risk contacts of an earlier case.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has screened more than 7,000 Dharavi residents so far to spot COVID-19 patients.
After the first cases were reported in Dharavi, as per protocol, the BMC had put their high risk contacts in quarantine in the Rajiv Gandhi sports complex. The people were screened for symptoms regularly. Of these, it found nine people showing symptoms and upon testing, they were found to be positive. They are residents of Madina Nagar, Muslim Nagar and Social Nagar. Besides, six new cases were reported on Sunday. These include four from Shastri Nagar slum and two from Janata Society. Janata Society had earlier reported two cases but these two people were not part of their high risk contacts. So far, Dharavi’s Mukund Nagar has reported the highest cases at nine. This brings the total cases in Dharavi so far to 43 including four deaths.
Also read: Coronavirus | Dharavi emerges as COVID-19 hotspot
Fever screening
The BMC has now started fever screening of Dharavi residents involving 24 private doctors, 35 municipal staffers and 10 police staffers. The teams have screened 7,135 residents so far, of which they referred 82 for testing. Of the 82, swabs were already taken from 40. The teams are armed with 55 PPE kits, 70 masks, 70 gloves, 18 infrared thermometers.
“Now, we will check who these 15 people made contact with in the last 15 days. But since nine of these are high risk contacts and were quarantined, we prevented further spread. In the case of Janata Society, the two new patients were not known to the earlier patients. With our fever screening, we are looking for patients with symptoms like fever and cough to separate them from the rest and test them,” said Assistant Municipal Commissioner of G North Ward Kiran Dighavkar.
Quarantine facility
Mr. Dighavkar’s team has also made a 700-bed quarantine facility ready at a municipal school in Dharavi in a span of three days. The facility is now ready for quarantining high risk contacts who live in cramped quarters. With the sports complex having a capacity of 300, Dharavi now has a capacity of quarantining 1,000 people.
