With Covid-19 cases rapidly rising and new variant omicron spreading its tentacles across the city, the slum sprawl in the city once again becomes the focal point of the city administration. Dharavi, Asia's largest slum which became a model for the world for its COVID-19 containment strategy recorded 17 new cases on Wednesday, the highest since May 18, 2021.
The total cumulative case count in Dharavi since April 2020 is 7219.
Dharavi, which was one of the deadliest hotspots of the pandemic last year during the first wave managed to get a grip over the outbreak and reported cases in single digits and even zero for months. However, according to BMC officials, the area has been showing signs of cases rising as part of the wave spread across Mumbai. Active cases in Dharavi — Asia’s largest slum — increased fourfold within nine days from just 10 cases on December 20 to 43 as of December 29.
Dharavi, reported zero Covid cases 14 times in the month of December and continuously for six days between December 15 and 20, according to the data shared by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
According to BMC officials, there are about 4.6 lakh people above 18 years old in Dharavi. However, with a floating population, it reaches up to 8.5 lakh. Due to the looming Omicron threat, the BMC has started conducting random tests at Dharavi and said that 57% of the eligible population is vaccinated until December 21. Besides, since the first case of Omicron from Dharavi, civic authorities have geared up to reintroduce the ‘Dharavi Model' aggressively to keep a check on any rise in daily infection cases. Officials from the G-north ward said that the three key steps – sanitizing public toilets five times in a day, free Covid-19 testing and door-to-door vaccination – will be taken up in the entire Dharavi.
"We never relaxed any of our containment strategies even when the number of cases declined across G north ward. The rise in Dharavi and other parts of the G north ward is the part and parcel of what is happening across Mumbai and not individual rise in cases. The cases are bound to increase as the numbers will surge across the city. We will keep tracing cases and their high risk and low-risk contacts, start isolating them. Besides vaccination drive is already on our priority list," said Kiran Dighavkar, Assistant Municipal Commissioner of G North ward
The number of cases can be seen surging across G north ward (Dharavi, Dadar, Mahim). While the slum-dominated Dharavi recorded 17 new coronavirus cases, the scenario is the worst in Mahim and Dadar which recorded 29 and 32 new covid19 cases respectively on Wednesday. The total active cases in Mahim and Dadar have increased to 138 and 129 respectively.
