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Bloomberg
As many as 15,000 people in Mumbai, including many in Dharavi, Asia’s most crowded slum, will be given an anti-malarial drug as a preventive therapy to ward off the deadly coronavirus.
The first-of-its-kind mass experiment of using hydroxychloroquine as a prophylaxis is being undertaken in the state of Maharashtra — home to India’s financial centre that’s racing to curb the pathogen. Mumbai has emerged as the nation’s biggest virus hotspot, reporting the maximum number of infected cases and deaths.
About “10,000 to 15000 people who are quarantined and suspected to be infected, will be given the drug,†Maharashtra’s Health Minister Rajesh Tope said. “Only people having a high risk of infection in Dharavi will be given the drug.†The move to administer the much-touted but unproven drug as a preventive therapy on a mass scale highlights the race among local healthcare officials to curb the pathogen from spreading in Mumbai’s crowded slums.