Mumbai’s Dharavi has not recorded a single case of COVID-19 since a week

As coronavirus cases continue to grow in India, there comes a shine of little hope for the country. The worst-affected city Mumbai’s hotspot Dharavi has not recorded a single case of the virus for the past six days.

Also, the area had 1,899 patients out of whom 939 have been recovered already, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials have said as cited in the Hindustan Times report.

Officials said on Sunday that 34 people had tested positive for Covid-19 on June 1, and that the number has now come down to 10 for Asia’s largest slum.

“Dharavi has not reported a single death in the last six days, which is the first major indicator that we are on the right track. The number of people getting discharged is also increasing,” Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of G north ward of BMC, said on Sunday, according to PTI .

Dighavkar added 939 of the 1,899 Covid-19 patients have recovered. “Dharavi area has reported 71 deaths so far. But the real change is (reflected) in the daily testing of samples. A total of 34 people had tested positive for coronavirus on June 1 which has now come down to 10,” he added.

Mumbai had recorded 1,420 new Covid-19 cases and 61 deaths taking the case count and toll to 48,774 and 1,638 respectively.

Maharashtra witnessed 3,007 cases on Sunday, taking the tally to 85,975. It also reported 91 deaths taking the state’s death toll to 3,060.

Dighavkar said Dharavi has reported a lower number of cases because of aggressive screening and testing of suspected cases in the area as well as the activation of fever clinics.

“With the help of fever clinics, we could identify the people showing symptoms similar to that of coronavirus infection. We isolated them immediately which helped in either containing further transmission of the virus or spreading any kind of infection from those who are feeling unwell,” he said.

Dharavi is a home to at least a million people. The area had reported the first Covid-19 case on April 1, a week after the national lockdown was declared on March 25.

According to BMC officials, the large scale exodus of migrants from Dharavi during the lockdown could have also led to the lower number of Covid-19 cases.

“Dharavi offers jobs to hundreds of thousands of people. With continued extensions to the lockdown, a sizeable number of people have left the slum for their homes. This helped us in ensuring physical distancing to some extent,” an official was quoted as saying by PTI .