Mumbai: COVID-19 death toll rises to 65; count of patients 775

Nine coronavirus patients died in Mumbai on Thursday, taking the death toll due to the deadly infection in the city to 65, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

Seventy-nine persons tested positive for COVID-19 during the day, taking the number of such cases in the country's financial capital to 775, the civic body said.

Six patients were discharged after recovery, it said.

So far 65 coronavirus patients have been discharged from hospitals in the city.

Mumbai is one of the hotspots of COVID-19 as large number of people tested positive on the city and the civic body has created 381 containment zones to contain the spread of the virus.

Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar said the number of COVID-19 positive cases have dropped after witnessing a rise for two days.

"It is due to the door-to-door screening of people from areas, where COVID-19 patients were found, that the number of positive cases has gone down at Koliwada and other areas of the city," she said.

A senior BMC official said the city will soon get 13,000 new personal protective equipment (PPE) suits, which will be brought in a flight.

The BMC sources said that a nurse at Sion Hospital and a doctor tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.

Four new positive cases, including a 70-year-old patient who died at KEM Hospital, tested coronavirus positive from Dharavi, taking the tally of such patients from the slum to 17, a BMC official said.

Meanwhile, the civic body has decided to keep all the shops, excluding medical shops, shut in the 10 containment zones spread over Dharavi, Dadar and Mahim.

The BMC claimed that it has surveyed more than 15 lakh people through health teams so far and identified 2,806 high risk contacts, which are referred for testing and also 1,500 samples collected through five teams by home visits.

"Because of vigorous action in a containment zone and timely quarantine of contacts, reduction in cases in these areas is seen," the BMC said.

It said that clinics have been set up on the periphery of the containment zones, where doctors, nurses and lab technicians, are deployed.

"Forty Such clinics have been set up till April 8and 442 swabs have been collected from the suspected cases," the civic body said.