Coronavirus : India’s COVID19 fatality rate among the lowest in the world,says Union Health Ministry

Union Health Ministry on Tuesday revealed that India is among the countries with the lowest coronavirus fatality rates. Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal informed that a total of 60,490 patients in India have recovered so far from COVID-19 and the recovery rate continues to climb and is currently at 41.61%. The fatality rate in India is 2.87%, down from 3.38 per cent in April, Agarwal said.

The deadly coronavirus has thus far claimed 4,167 lives in the country. Maharashtra has been the worst-hit by the menace of coronavirus, with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths at 1,695. A large chunk of it, more than 1000 of them have been reported from the state capital—Mumbai.

According to Agarwal, prompt decision to enforce lockdown and early detection of coronavirus cases were crucial reasons behind the low fatalities in the country. While 4.5 deaths per lakh population have been reported across the world, India has witnessed about 0.3 deaths per lakh population, Agarwal said while briefing the media about the COVID-19 crisis in India.

“In terms of mortality rate, we have astonishingly found low death rate in India, which is a good sign. There are several factors why India has a low fatality rate but we can’t say anything definitively on them. Hope this trend continues,” Dr Balram Bhargava, Director General, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.

Agarwal said that the total number of coronavirus caseloads in India stood at 145,380 with states and union territories registering over 6,500 coronavirus cases for the last three days. As of today, India has 10.7 COVID-19 cases per lakh population in comparison to 69.9 cases per lakh population worldwide, Agarwal said.

The ICMR has significantly scaled up the daily testing of COVID-19 in the country. At present, about 1.1 lakh cases are tested per day at 612 labs scattered across the country.

Talking about the recovery rate which has gone past 40 per cent-mark, Agarwal said, “Recovery rate is continuously improving. When the first lockdown started, the recovery rate was around 7.1%. The recovery rate during the second lockdown was 11.42%, which further rose to 26.59%. Now, it is 41.61%.”