MUMBAI: For the first time since the Covid-19 outbreak, the tally of active Covid cases in Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, touched zero on Thursday even as the high-density population centre reported no fresh cases and pandemic deaths on the day.
According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Dharavi has recorded 8,233 Covid cases and 419 deaths so far.
The slum is a part of G North civic ward of the BMC and shares border with Dadar and Mahim areas.
While Mahim has recorded 14,310 recoveries and 265 deaths, Dadar has seen 13,243 recoveries and 306 deaths so far.
While Dharavi has no active cases, both Dadar and Mahim have one active cases each.
Kiran Dighavkar, assistant municipal commissioner of G North, said that since the outbreak of the pandemic, this is the first time Dharavi is reporting zero active and fresh cases.
“It is really a zero, zero and zero day for us. It has happened because of the hard work of officials and local residents. It was a big challenge for us to control the outbreak but we did it successfully. We had also carried out aggressive vaccination drive in the area,” Dhighavkar said
Dharavi has an estimated population of seven lakh living on a small area of 2.1 sq km. There are 5,000 small business and industrial units in the slum. The first Covid case was reported here on April 1, 2020. Dharavi was a hotspot of Covid cases in 2020. However, the local administration effectively controlled it.
Dhighavkar has also penned a book — Dharavi model — describing the BMC’s fight against Covid-19. The book was released by Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray recently.
The efforts of BMC to control the spread of the virus were lauded by many people.
Dighavkar not only activated local administration to contain the virus but engaged celebrities like Ajay Devgan and corporates to extend financial help through corporate social responsibility to distribute food and medical supplies in the slum area.
Maharashtra on Thursday reported 139 new coronavirus cases and three fresh fatalities linked to the disease, while 255 more patients were discharged following recovery, bringing the active tally below 1,000, the state health department said.
With this, the tally of COVID-19 cases in the state rose to 78,72,956, while the death toll increased to 1,43,772, a heath department bulletin said.
On Wednesday, the state had logged 149 coronavirus cases and two fatalities.
The Kolhapur administrative circle, that includes Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri Sangli and Kolhapur districts did not report any new coronavirus infection.
In all, 24 districts and 15 municipal corporations did not report any fresh cases of the coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours.
Mumbai reported the highest COVID-19 among all the cities in the state at 54.
Significantly, Maharashtra's active cases dropped below the 1,000-mark.
As per the department, the number of recovered cases in Maharashtra increased to 77,24,214 after 255 patients were discharged during the day, leaving the state with 965 active cases.
The coronavirus fatality rate in the state was 1.82 per cent, while the recovery rate stood at 98.11 per cent.
With 45,466 new coronavirus tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the number of swab samples tested so far in Maharashtra rose to 7,91,13,785, the bulletin said.
Maharashtra's positivity rate, or cases detected per 100 tests, was 0.003 per cent.
The Mumbai circle, that includes most parts of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, recorded 72 new cases, followed by Pune (34), Nashik (15), Akola (6), Latur (6), Nagpur (3) and the Aurangabad circle (3).
Of the eight circles, only the Pune circle reported fresh fatalities at three.
An administrative circle consists of multiple districts.
Coronavirus figures of Maharashtra are as follows: Positive cases 78,72,956; fresh cases 139; death toll 1,43,772; recoveries 77,24,214; active cases 965, total tests 7,91,13,785.
(With PTI Inputs)
Dense population cluster
Dharavi has an estimated population of seven lakh living on a small area of 2.1 sq km.
There are 5,000 small business and industrial units in the slum.
The first Covid case was reported here on April 1, 2021. Dharavi was a hotspot of Covid cases in 2020.