McKinsey may conduct Covid prevalence study in Dharavi

MUMBAI: A task force under global consultancy firm McKinsey is readying to conduct a disease prevalence study in Dharavi in an attempt to find out how many people have developed immunity towards SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes Covid-19, said people aware of the development.

The development comes as Mumbai reels under an increasing number of Covid-19 cases. “The idea of this study is to gauge the level of herd immunity in hotspot Covid-19 areas of the city like Dharavi,” said an official, who did not wish to be identified.

On Tuesday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) announced that it was conducting a community based sero survey to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in India, in collaboration with the health ministry, National Centre for Disease Control, state health departments and key stakeholders including the World Health Organization.


This household cross-sectional survey will cover 24,000 adults across four strata of districts categorised on the basis of reported cases of Covid-19.

In Maharashtra, six districts have been selected – Beed, Nanded, Parbhani, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar and Sangli.