MUMBAI: While cases continue of rise in Maharashtra, what has come as a major relief to the Uddhav Thackeray government is the declining graph in Asia’s largest slum Dharavi.
With the lockdown restrictions largely removed, Mumbai has seen cases going up in the last few days. On Sunday, 1,421 positive cases including 61 deaths were reported, up from a total of 1,274 positive patients and 57 deaths on Saturday. On Friday, the city had recoded 1,150 cases and 53 deaths.
However, according to the Brihabmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) data, the growth of Covid-19 patients in G South civic ward, where Dharavi is located, has declined to 1.9 per cent on Monday as against 2.6 per cent on June 3.
“In Dharavi, a total 1,899 positive cases are reported of which 46.85 per cent have been cured and discharged. The mortality rate is 3.71 per cent with 71 deaths,” stated the BMC report.
Kiran Dhighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner, said their strategy was to focus on tracing, testing and isolation.
“It has yielded positive results. We have screened 4.76 lakh people, including 8,246 senior citizens. We had a health team of 47,400 doctors and health workers. Mobile van doctors also checked 14,970 people,” Dhighavkar said.
Rahul Shelave, Shiv Sena MP under whose constituency the area comes, said it was a big challenge before the administration but the government machinery managed to contain the spread of the virus.
“Dharavi is densely populated with 5-8 persons staying a single room. But our health workers and doctors visited almost all houses to identify high and low risk and mildly symptomatic patients. We put them in the isolation centres or home-quarantined them,” he said.
Maharashtra's COVID-19 tally rose to 88,528 on Monday with 2,553 new cases while the fatality count mounted by 109, including 64 deaths in Mumbai, to 3,169, state health department said.
With 1,311 more people testing positive for the infection, the number of cases in Mumbai crossed the 50,000- mark and reached to 50,085 while the death toll rose to 1,702.
A total of 1,661 patients were discharged in the day, taking the number of the recovered cases to 40,975, it said.
The recovery rate for Maharashtra, which has the highest case load in the country, now slightly increased from 45.72 per cent on Sunday to 46.28 per cent on Monday while the fatality rate stood at 3.57 per cent, an official statement said.
The state now has 44,374 active cases, it said, adding that a total of 5,64,331 samples have been tested so far.
"Of the 109 deaths being recorded, 32 fatalities had occurred in the last two days while the rest (77) during May 3 and 5," it said.
Of the 109 deaths reported on Monday, 70 were from the MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region) area including 64 in Mumbai, it said.
The remaining deaths include eight from Aurangabad, seven from Pune, six each from Jalgaon and Solapur, four from Dhule, three from Ratnagiri, two from Kalyan- Dombivli and one each from Ulhasnagar, Vasai Virar, Bhiwandi, Thane, Ahmednagar, Jalna and Nanded.
Bulk of 66,640 cases have been reported from MMR which includes Mumbai city.
MMR has reported 2,134 fatalities, the statement said.
Currently, 5,64,736 people are placed under home quarantine and 26,760 in institutional quarantine across Maharashtra.
A state official said 75,759 beds are available for institutional quarantine across the state.
The number of containment zones in the state stood at 3,510.
In Malegaon city in Nashik district, the number of cases stood at 838 with 68 deaths, it said.
Pune city has reported 8,537 cases and 381 fatalities so far.
The case tally for Solapur city is 1,321 with 550 deaths, it said.
Aurangabad city has reported 1,984 cases and 98 deaths, the Health department said.
Kolhpur division now has 1,302 COVID-19 cases with 25 deaths.
The number of cases in Aurangabad division is 2,536 and 108 fatalities.
Latur division has recorded 489 cases and 16 deaths so far while Akola has 1,401 cases and 61 deaths, the health department said.
The number of cases in the Nagpur division is 967 with 12 deaths.
A total of 75 people from outside Maharashtra have tested positive for COVID-19 so far in the state while 19 deaths have been reported.
Maharashtra COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases 88,528, new cases 2,553 deaths 3,169, discharged 40,975, active cases 44,374, people tested so far 5,64,331.
(With PTI Inputs)