india

Updated: Mar 29, 2020 03:20 IST

A 37-year-old slum dweller from Mumbai’s Jambhipada with travel history to Italy has tested positive for coronavirus and triggered panic in the city, where over five million live in slums, officials said. So far hundreds of slum dwellers have been quarantined in their homes and activists fear the Covid-19 cases could increase because of the overcrowded nature of the slums.

The list of infected patients in slums includes two each from Ghatkopar and Kalina, and one each from Prabhadevi, Govandi and Cheetah Camp. A doctor, who had earlier treated the 37-year-old or influenza, has also been infected.

The 37-year-old worked at a restaurant in Italy and returned to India in the second week of March and was asymptomatic when he arrived at the Mumbai airport. He later developed cold and cough and visited the doctor. When his condition did not improve, he visited the Kasturba Hospital where he was diagnosed with Covid-19.

“Soon after, the doctor also started developing symptoms. On March 25, he was identified with Covid-19 after his swab test. Currently, he is undergoing treatment at Raheja Hospital. His wife and children have been found negative for the virus,” said a close friend of the doctor, who did not want to be named.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials have been tracking all the people, who came in contact with these two patients.

A housemaid tested positive for Covid-19 worked for a US-returned couple. She lives in a Ghatkopar slum, where around 25,000 people reside.

On Thursday, a 65-year-old woman, who lived in a Parel chawl and ran a food stall near a corporate house, died at the Kasturba Hospital of Covid-19. The civic body has screened over 25 people who were in close contact with her and quarantined 10. Additionally, hundreds of travellers and slum dwellers, who have been identified as close contacts, have been kept in home quarantine.