India’s COVID-19 cases, fatality rate per million population lowest in world: Health ministry

Citing a World Health Organisation (WHO) situation report, the central government, on Tuesday, claimed the country had one of the lowest coronavirus deaths and cases per million population. The recovery rate had increased to 61.13 %, it added.

India recorded 22,252 new cases and 467 deaths in the last 24 hours, pushing the tally to 7,19,665 and toll to 20,160.

"The WHO situation report, dated July 6, shows India has one of the lowest cases of COVID-19 per million population. India's cases per million is 505.37, while the global average is 1,453.25," the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Chile has witnessed 15,459.8 cases of COVID-19 per million population, while Peru, the US, Brazil and Spain have 9,070.8, 8,560.5, 7,419.1 and 5,358.7 cases per million, respectively.

Alluding to the report, the government said India had one of the lowest deaths per million population. "India's cases of death per million is 14.27, while the global average is 68.29," it said.

The UK has witnessed 651.4 cases of COVID-19 related deaths per million, while the same for Spain, Italy, France, and the US is 607.1, 576.6, 456.7 and 391, respectively.

The government said the hospital infrastructure had been ramped up to manage the cases and the preparedness included arrangement of oxygen support, ICU and ventilator facilities.

As on July 7, there are 1,201 Dedicated Covid Hospitals, 2,611 Dedicated Covid Healthcare Centres and 9,909 COVID Care Centres to take care of patients with very severe to very mild symptoms.

"Such level of preparedness has shown results in continuously improving recovery rate and low fatality rate," the government claimed.

During the last 24 hours, 15,515 COVID-19 patients have been discharged, taking the cumulative figure of recovered cases to 4,39,947.

"There are 1,80,390 recovered cases, which is more than the active cases. The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients has increased to 61.13 %." All the 2,59,557 active cases are under medical supervision.

Coordinated efforts at national and state levels for prevention, containment and management of COVID-19 cases are showing encouraging results with the gap between recoveries and active cases increasing consistently.

Enhanced focus on "Test, Trace, Treat", further augmented the testing and over 200,000 tests a day are being conducted. During the last 24 hours, 2,41,430 samples have been tested. With this, the number of COVID-19 samples tested across the country stands at 1,02,11,092.

The testing lab network continues to expand. At present, there are 1,115 labs in the country.