Mumbai’s health workers have just not been able to catch a break. On October 19, (when the city only recorded eight new cases of Covid-19 — a single-digit daily caseload for the first time since March 2020 — the frontline workers were so overwhelmed fighting the measles outbreak, that they hardly took notice of the momentous feat. Over the last few months, the city has lost 13 children to the highly contagious viral infection, with over 200 confirmed cases and several hospitalised. Health officials are alarmed because the spike is unusually high this year. For instance, Mumbai recorded only nine cases of measles and one death in 2021; 25 confirmed cases with no deaths in 2020; and 37 cases and three deaths in 2019.
