The 60-year-old from Mumbai's Nehru Chawl who died of the virus breathed his last at Sion Hospital. The health officials have started efforts to trace the contacts of the deceased man.
The samples of a 60-year-old man who passed away in Mumbai's Dharavi area tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday, thereby raising the region's COVID-19 tally to 47 cases and pushing the death toll up to five.
On Monday, the Maharashtra Health Department informed that 82 new positive cases of coronavirus infection were reported in the state on this day, taking the total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the state to 2,064. 59 of these new cases are in Mumbai, of which, 47 are in Dharavi.
The 60-year-old from Mumbai's Nehru Chawl who died of the virus breathed his last at Sion Hospital. The health officials have started efforts to trace the contacts of the deceased man.
As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak continues to spread like wildfire across India, the financial capital of the country, Mumbai, has emerged as the epicenter of coronavirus spread. The biggest challenge in Mumbai is containing the spread of coronavirus in Dharavi, considered one of the largest slums in the world.
Mumbai Police on Sunday barricaded the Dharavi area in the city amid rising coronavirus cases from the locality. Police personnel were also deployed in the area to keep a watch on the movement of people.
Two days ago, healthcare workers conducted a door-to-door screening of all the Dharavi residents. Notably, Dharavi is considered to be the largest slum in the entire continent and it has a population of an estimated 15 lakh people. Still, a team comprising private doctors of Dharavi and BMC medical staff checked the temperature and questioned the people about their travel history.
Earlier still, on April 7, Mumbai South Central Lok Sabha MP Rahul Shewale had urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to completely lock down Dharavi in order to prevent it from becoming a coronavirus COVID-19 hotspot.
According to the Shiv Sena MP, the Mumbai police are making a good effort to curb the spread of coronavirus in Dharavi but people of the area are not paying any heed to the warnings of the administration. The politician had also demanded additional police force of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) so that they can extend their help to the city police.
"If the virus is not contained in Dharavi, then Mumbai will be in serious trouble. The spread of coronavirus can be very fast in Dharavi due to the congestion," he had said.
However, it is to be noted that Dharavi is a densely populated slum in Mumbai with over 15 lakh people, spread over 613 hectares. Many media reports claim that social distancing in such a densely populated slum is unthinkable. On an average, five to eight people share a 100 sq ft of room in this region. According to the guidelines of social distancing set by WHO, one person should get to stay a minimum of 20 sq ft of the area but in Dharavi, it is less than 10 sq ft.
Even outside of Dharavi, the city of Mumbai remains adversely affected by the virus outbreak. New cases of COVID-19 affected individuals are being reported from the Dadar area in South Mumbai
Maharashtra is the worst-hit state in the country, followed by Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan. Monday marks Day 20 of the 21-day lockdown in India announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The central government is also setting up dedicated COVID-19 hospitals, in order to provide proper treatment and stop the spread of infection. The Health Ministry had on Sunday said that the government is 'overprepared' as there are more than a sufficient number of hospital beds available compared to the number of positive coronavirus cases in the country.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) informed that in the last five days, the average number of samples that have been tested is 15,747 per day and the average number of samples which tested positive is 584. It further informed that more than 40 vaccines are under development but none have reached the next stage of testing.
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