Dharavi reports no new COVID-19 case, first time since April

Mumbai's Dharavi did not report a single COVID-19 case in the last 24 hours.

The slum-dominated Dharavi area of Mumbai did not report a single coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours, for the first time since April 1, a civic official said on Friday evening. On April 1 the first coronavirus patient was detected in the area and on December 25, no new case was detected.

The caseload of Dharavi now stands at 3,788, though the number of active cases is 12, eight of them in home isolation and four in a COVID care centre, the civic official said. So far, 3,464 people have recovered in Dharavi, where 6.5 lakh people live in an area spread over 2.5 square kilometres.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Dharavi, among the densest urban settlements in the world, was a major source of anxiety for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. However, BMC's aggressive efforts to contain the spread of the virus paid off and soon the number of new infections began to dwindle.

In July, the World Health Organization (WHO) took notice of this feat, citing Dharavi as an example of how to contain the virus. "It is the result of four `T's, Tracing, testing, tracking and treatment, and active community participation at every level," said a BMC official.

with additional inputs from news agency PTI