Pune: Once a hotspot for corona-virus infections, the Tadiwala Road area near Pune Railway Station is on its way to become 'COVID-19 patient free'. This area has seen only one positive case in the last five days which is the lowest till date since the first patient was found on April 6.
Strict enforcement of social distancing and creating awareness about coming forward to test for Covid-19 has resulted in drop of cases in the last two months. The total number of cases in this area till date has reached 773. To contain the spread of corona virus further and reduce the number of positive cases, the civic administration had appointed a special officer Saurabh Rao - the Sugar Commissioner of Maharashtra - for this area.
Two persons working in a nearby hospital were found to be infected by corona virus on April 6 in the Tadiwala road area. Since then, the locality had seen rising number of patients everyday - sometimes even topping the chart - which had sent the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials in a tizzy. Tadiwala road slum area is spread across about three square kilometers near the Pune railway station on Raja Bahadur Mill road. The slum has 48 small lanes and 13,500 hutments with a population size of around 70 thousand. Since the slum area is densely populated, the corona virus infection spread was too fast in the initial days.
When Saurabh Rao took charge of the mission to reduce cases in Tadiwala road area, the administration took effective measures. The small lanes were closed entirely and non-essential movement of people in the slum was controlled. A total of 550 volunteers from the slum itself were enrolled for patrolling as well as surveying purpose.
These volunteers went door-to-door collecting information of unwell citizens, senior citizens, their mobile numbers and symptoms if any. Essential items were provided to all at their doorstep which in return ensured that social distancing norms were strictly followed.
A major challenge faced in the slum area was that people were not ready to come forward and test themselves for COVID-19 for the fear of social boycott and certain other misunderstandings. To overcome this challenge, the civic administration officials recorded videos of patients who had recovered from the disease.
These videos were then sent on mobiles of all citizens residing in the area. Once everyone realised that coronavirus can be treated and defeated with correct diagnosis and treatment, people started showing up for tests.