Asia’s largest slum cluster Dharavi, praised for its resilience and fight against the novel coronavirus, saw a mega inoculation drive from July 10-12. This comes after the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) had to discontinue its vaccination drive due to unavailability of vaccine doses.
Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale joined hands with other private players and a corporate social responsibility initiative to inoculate close to 9000 residents of Dharavi. The Dharavi model has been appreciated world over for the manner in which it contained the virus spread and kept corona at bay thereafter.
However, vaccine hesitancy kept the pace of vaccination among its people low. With a population of seven lakh, Dharavi has so far managed to vaccinate only 30,000 inhabitants. Shiv Sena MP Rahul Shewale aims to change that and hopes to vaccinate the entire population of this slum cluster in coming months, he said.
Sena workers helped over 12000 residents register for vaccination through a door-to- door campaign during the three-day drive, as people walked out of the narrow alleys to reach the vaccination site near Kumbharwada. “We have gone door to door to help people get registered for this drive. All these people have been coming to this centre for vaccination … people are very excited about getting vaccinated but our bmc centres are facing shortage due to unavailability of doses … so with the help of our MP Shewale saheb and support of other private players this was possible.”
“He gave us a target to vaccinate 3000 beneficiaries in a day, we said we are ready to get 10,000 vaccinated, however we have to keep social distancing in mind, so we aim to vaccinate 10,000 residents of Dharavi in three days,” said a local Sena leader who was involved in the drive.
Dr Dipen Deole from Surana & Sethia Hospital who was overseeing the drive said, “We know that vaccination is biggest protection against third wave and we have already vaccinated 3000 people yesterday through one camp and we plan to continue vaccination for another 2 days. This is through CSR activity of ICICI Lombard who’ve tied up with Surana group of hospitals for this drive. Hopefully we will get additional 30000 doses and then we will administer more doses”
Additional Municipal Commissioner Kiran Dhigavkar reveals more companies are approaching them for similar CSR initiatives in Dharavi, which he believes is a win-win situation as more residents of Dharavi can get vaccinated before the third wave.
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