Mumbai races to keep virus from Asia’s largest slum

Bloomberg

When government official Kiran Dighavkar heard that a 56-year-old man who’d recently died in the Mumbai suburb of Dharavi had tested positive for Covid-19, he knew his next moves would determine the trajectory of the outbreak in India’s commercial capital.
The man, who died on April 1, lived with seven members of his family in a 400 square foot flat adjoining Asia’s most densely packed slum, where as many as 80 people share a public toilet. Not only could infection spread rampantly, but home quarantine for those testing positive would not be an option.
Officials had an added problem. Fearing stigmatisation, the man’s family were not fully co-operating with authorities.
Dighavkar, an assistant commissioner for the city’s municipality, and his team in charge
of the area surrounding Dharavi, turned to mobile phone providers to retrace the man’s movements. His contacts were tested and high-risk ones, those with respiratory or other conditions, were isolated.
Authorities’ efforts are focussed on preventing the pathogen from racing undetected through the slum where a population the size of San Francisco packs into an area smaller than New York’s Central Park.
Trying to trace and contain outbreaks in settlements such as Dharavi — 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) from Mumbai’s key business district and home to India’s biggest stock exchange and the local headquarters of JPMorgan Chase & Co — are critical in India’s fight against the deadly coronavirus, which has sickened over 1.2 million people globally and killed more than 64,000.
With a population of about 1 million, many of whom are migrant labourers from villages thousands of miles away, keeping the contagion from spreading in Dharavi could help prevent hospitals in Mumbai and across India from being overwhelmed.
Mumbai is turning into somewhat of an epicenter for the outbreak in the country, having reported more than a tenth of India’s 3,374 cases and almost half of its deaths, according to official data reported on April 05.
This could be partly because of higher levels of testing but also due to a high proportion of low-wage migrant population as well as globe-trotting corporate executives.
In Dharavi, which sleeps thousands of daily wagers and hosts businesses run from huts with a tarpaulin roof — at times without government permissions — tensions and mistrust are rising. Some youth pelted stones after police tried to seal the area and keep residents from stepping out of their homes.
“We are talking about a slum where 10-12 people live in 10×10 feet tin hutments. You can’t expect them to sit at home all day long,” said Vinod Shetty, director at the non-profit Acorn Foundation, which works with sanitation workers in Dharavi. “They pay 25 rupees for a gallon of water, you’ll tell them to wash their hands frequently. Eighty people share a public toilet, you’ll tell them to not leave their house. How is that possible?”
Shetty and authorities Bloomberg News interviewed say the residents of Dharavi are aware of the risks of Covid-19. But they’re also scared, just like millions of poor people across the globe, of losing their jobs, of being unable to provide for their families, and of being hauled away by police. It’s crucial that the government use community leaders in these slums to build trust, Shetty says.
“In Dharavi, it’s very difficult to get the facts right. A lot of times residents are not telling us the truth about their travel history or where they have been out of fear,” said Dighavkar.