However, three months on, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai city offers a glimmer of hope as the number of new infections has decreased thanks to a tough strategy focused on `chasing the virus, instead of waiting for disaster.`
This chaotic slum has long exemplified income inequality in India’s financial capital, with an estimated one million of Dharavi’s residents working as factory workers or maids and drivers.
Panorama of slums in Mumbai, India on June 27.
With more than a dozen people sleeping in one room and hundreds of people sharing a toilet, officials soon realized that epidemic prevention regulations would be difficult to apply here.
`Social distancing is impossible, home quarantine is never an option and contact tracing is a big problem because so many people share toilets,` Dighavkar said.
Initial plans to conduct door-to-door screening were scrapped after Mumbai’s hot and humid weather left health workers feeling suffocated as they weaved through cramped alleys wearing protective gear.
However, when the number of cases increased rapidly and fewer than 50,000 people tested showed symptoms, officials decided to act quickly and creatively.
Every day, medical staff set up a `fever camp` in a different part of the slum so people could be checked for symptoms and tested for nCoV if necessary.
Strict control measures were deployed in hot spots where 125,000 people live, including using drones to monitor people’s movements and alert police, while a large number of
Bollywood stars and tycoons contributed money to buy medical equipment when a 200-bed field hospital was built at breakneck speed in a park inside Dharavi.
Health workers screen each household in the Dharavi slum in Mumbai on June 24.
By the end of June, more than half of the slum’s residents with suspected symptoms were screened and about 12,000 people tested positive for nCoV.
`We are on the verge of victory, I feel very proud,` said Abhay Taware, a doctor who took care of about 100 patients a day in his small clinic during the peak of the pandemic.
The 44-year-old man of two also had to fight nCoV himself after contracting the virus in April, but `has no doubt` he will return to work.
`I think I can show patients that being diagnosed positive doesn’t mean the end,` Taware said.
Even though doctors like Taware are taking care of people, discrimination still exists.
The 24-year-old male doctor also warned about the possibility of a resurgence of the epidemic.
`The more careful people are the better. The numbers may go down but they can go back up quickly,` he said.
As Mumbai and Delhi are struggling to control the epidemic, with the number of infections across India exceeding 500,000, officials worry that celebrating now is too early.
`This is a war. Everything is exploding,` Dighavkar said.
Some people in the slum also worry that they may not be as lucky next time.
`I feel like Dharavi will be destroyed and there will be nothing left,` he said, describing the possibility of avoiding infection in the slum as almost impossible.
`We need better infrastructure. Otherwise, the next time an epidemic emerges, I think Dharavi will not be able to escape.`