Mumbai, 25 September 2020

 

Although Mumbai has been reporting higher number of Covid 19 cases, the mortality rate in the city has come down over the last two months.  The Case Fatality Rate,  i.e. death due to Covid 19 as percentage of total reported cases, has come down to 4.5% as against 5.8% during June. BMC’s Additional Municipal Commissioner (Health)  Suresh Kakani has attributed this dip to better monitoring as part of ‘Mission Save Lives’.

Shri Kakani elaborated that under Mission Save Lives, a separate list of critical patients in every hospital was prepared and their treatment was monitored continuously.  “Every day, consultations were held with doctors twice through video conference, expert advice was made available through Task Force members and continuous video surveillance of serious cases was carried out. As part of the project, advanced ventilators were made available, along with the services of trained technicians, which played key role in bringing down the mortality rate” he added.

Addl. Municipal Commissioner further said that although Mumbai is reporting higher number of Covid 19 cases, the situation in the city is under control.  He said that with the unlocking process now on, most of the service and business establishments except cinema halls, restaurants as well as schools and colleges have opened up and there is increased movement of people.  He further informed that BMC has increased testing by 90% and they are in the process of scaling it up even further.

Shri Kakani assured that bed availability in Mumbai is satisfactory as nearly 5,500 out of 17,500 Covid beds are vacant. He further said that nearly 10% of 8,800 oxygen beds and 1,100 ventilator beds are vacant in Mumbai.

The Addl MC asserted that BMC has successfully brought down the curve in slums of Mumbai, which had posed serious challenges in the starting months.  He said, presently 70% of all the reported cases are coming from apartment residents.

Shri Kakani further stressed that public awareness plays a paramount role in controlling Covid and appealed to all citizens to cultivate Covid appropriate behavior.

Maharashtra Government has launched a direct contact campaign “Maaze Kutumb, Maazi Jababdari”  (My Family, My Responsibility) aimed at effective health care education for the control of Covid 19 outbreak. Under this campaign, health related information is being collected by reaching out to people directly. Currently campaign is in first phase and second phase would be initiated on 14th October.

5,700 teams are deployed in Mumbai for implementation with each team having 3 volunteers including representative from municipal authorities, nominee from local body representative, and civil society member would be part of team.  “An app with geo-tagging facility has been made available to each team, so as location of house and family member details can be collated with the use of technology. This will help in achieving target set in this programme”  Suresh Kakani added.

 

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RT/DR

 

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