Dharavi reports 23 new COVID-19 patients; active cases at 156

The tally of COVID-19 cases in Mumbai's slum colony of Dharavi increased to 2,938 on Monday with 23 more persons testing positive for the infection, the city civic body said. Notably, this was the fifth consecutive day of double digit rise in cases in the slum-dominated area where COVID-19 mitigation measures undertaken by authorities had received praise from various quarters.

Since the past more than a month, Dharavi used to report single digit cases barring a few days.

A BMC official said 2,512 patients have already recovered in Dharavi and discharged from hospitals.

He said at present, Dharavi has 156 active COVID-19 patients, a figure which has been increasing gradually since the beginning of September.

The civic body has, however, stopped sharing death figures from Dharavi since the past more than two months. The sprawling slum colony, spread over 2.5 sq km, has a population over 6.5 lakh. According to the official, the COVID-19 tally in the G-North civic ward, that houses Dharavi, Dadar and Mahim, among other areas, has increased to 8733 cases. He said the tally in Dadar rose to 3,033 with the addition of 39 new cases and in Mahim to 2,762 with 54 fresh infections.