The Union Health Ministry on Sunday said the Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have been able to effectively bring down the COVID-19 spread in Dharavi.

“They have actively ‘chased the virus’ and aggressively conducted targeted tracing of suspects,” the Ministry said.

In a release on Sunday, the Ministry said being densely populated (2,27,136 persons/sq. km), Dharavi had 491 cases in April 2020 with a 12% growth rate and a case doubling period of 18 days.

“The proactive measures adopted by the BMC have reduced the growth rate to 4.3% in May and further to 1.02% in June. These measures also ensured an improved case doubling time to 43 days in May and 78 days in June.”

It said several challenges presented themselves to the BMC where 80% population depends on community toilets and about 8-10 people live in households/hutments which measure about 10ft x 10ft coupled with narrow lanes with 2-3 storied houses where often the ground floor is a house and the other floors are used as factories. Hence, there are severe limitations of physical distancing with no possibility of effective ‘Home Quarantine’.

“The BMC adopted a model of actively following four T’s – Tracing, Tracking, Testing and Treating. A salient feature of its response strategy is strict enforcement of containment measures with three primary components — an effective containment strategy, conducting comprehensive testing and ensuring uninterrupted supply of goods and essential supplies to the community. Also only critical patients were moved outside Dharavi for admission to hospitals; 90% of the patients were treated inside Dharavi itself,” said the Ministry.