It was the news that many in India had feared. A 56-year-old man who lived in Dharavi, India’s largest slum, where almost 1 million people are densely packed together in a 2 sq km area in Mumbai, had tested positive for
coronavirus. He died shortly after.
It has prompted a scramble by local authorities to halt the virus before it takes hold in this overcrowded, unsanitary enclave, which was the inspiration for Danny Boyle’s film
Slumdog Millionaire.
But the prospect of attempting to contain transmission in a place where 10 people often live in a single room, more than 80 people share a public toilet and where many houses do not even have running water is already proving daunting to local officials. So far there are five known cases in Dharavi, while 25 people have been taken into special quarantine facilities and another 3,500 placed under home quarantine.
“We are doing everything we can to make sure it does not explode and that there is no community spread, but it is a big challenge to contain this,” said Kiran Dighavkar, the assistant municipal commissioner for G-North ward of
Mumbai.