Coronavirus: how Mumbai’s sprawling slums threaten to become a Covid-19 breeding ground

'In the Govandi slums of eastern Mumbai, 27-year-old Anjum Shaikh has heard enough about the coronavirus pandemic to know that she should wash her hands regularly to avoid infection. Yet with no running water to the single-storey structure she calls home, she has few options but to pay a neighbour for access to his tap – for 7 minutes, at 4am, three times a week. “If I don’t wake up in time, I will be left with no water. So, the days when it is my turn to fill water, I just don’t sleep,” she said. Such sleepless nights aren’t Shaikh’s only concern, however. As well as the Covid-19 illness caused by the coronavirus, which has infected at least 99 slum dwellers so far, Govandi is also a hotspot of infection for another deadly disease: tuberculosis...'

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