India's Covid-19 tally, fatality rate per million population lowest in world: Govt

Amid a spurt in Covid-19 cases, the government on Tuesday said the total number of coronavirus infections and fatalities per million population in the country are among the lowest in the world.

The country's Covid-19 caseload increased to 7,19,665 on Tuesday with a single day rise of 22,252 cases, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 with 467 persons succumbing to the disease in the last 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

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However, a PTI tally showed India's Covid-19 caseload at 7,34,647 and the death toll at 20,620. The tally has been compiled as per information provided by respective states and union territories.

The Union health ministry said India's recovered cases per million population is more than active Covid-19 cases per million. It credited the states and Union Territories for early identification and effective management of the coronavirus cases.

India has 315.8 recovered cases per million, while the active cases per million in the country is at a "low level" of 186.3, the ministry said in a statement.

During a virtual interaction with his Swedish counterpart, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan stated that India's preemptive, proactive and graded approach ensured a plateaued graph of Covid-19 cases and a significant number of unoccupied beds in the health facilities at any point of time.

Vardhan made the remarks in his conversation with Swedish Minister for Health and Social Affairs, Lena Hallengren, who had called upon him virtually to discuss cooperation in the field of health and medicine, according to a ministry statement.

Elaborating on the lessons India learned while handling the Covid-19 pandemic, Vardhan,said, "India has a recovery rate of more than 61 per cent and a mortality of as low as 2.78 per cent in spite of being a country of 1.35 billion."

Also, 2.5 lakh people are being tested every day. From a single lab four months back, the country now has more than 1,100 labs to diagnose Covid-19, he said.

"India's pro-active, pre-emptive and graded approach ensured a plateaued graph and significant number of unoccupied beds at any point of time in the three-tiered Covid health infrastructure assembled by the government," an official statement quoting Vardhan said.

Referring to the ‘WHO Situation Report-168’ dated July 6, the ministry said India's Covid-19 cases per million population is 505.37 as against the global average of 1,453.25.

Chile has witnessed 15,459.8 Covid-19 cases per million population, while Peru has 9,070.8 cases per million people.

The US, Brazil, Spain, Russia, the UK, Italy and Mexico have 8,560.5, 7,419.1, 5,358.7, 4,713.5, 4,204.4, 3,996.1 and 1,955.8 cases per million, respectively, according to the WHO report.

"The WHO Situation Report also shows that India has one of the lowest deaths (due to Covid-19) per million population. India's cases of death per million population is 14.27 while the global average is more than its four times, at 68.29," the ministry said.

The United Kingdom has 651.4 Covid-19 related deaths per million population, while the metric for Spain, Italy, France, the USA, Peru, Brazil and Mexico is 607.1, 576.6, 456.7, 391.0, 315.8, 302.3 and 235.5 deaths, respectively, the ministry said.

During the last 24 hours, a total of 15,515 Covid-19 patients have been cured, taking the cumulative figure of recovered cases among Covid-19 patients in the country to 4,39,947 as on Tuesday.

"Coordinated efforts at all levels of the national and state governments for prevention, containment and management of Covid-19 are showing encouraging results with consistently increasing gap between recoveries and active cases. Presently, there are 2,59,557 active cases and all are under medical supervision," the health ministry said.

“As on date, the number of recovered cases exceeded that of the active cases by 1,80,390 on Tuesday. The recovery rate among Covid-19 patients has increased to 61.13 per cent,” it said.

The ramped-up healthcare infrastructure in states has resulted in distribution of the positive cases in different healthcare facilities including Dedicated Covid Hospitals, Covid Health Care Centres and Covid Care Centres, the ministry said.

This coupled with effective treatment has ensured in keeping the case mortality low, the ministry said, adding that a ramping-up of Dedicated Covid in public and private sectors has ensured timely triaging and treatment of the patients.

Along with testing, contact-tracing and house-to-house surveys has been intensified especially in the containment zones, it stressed.

States have been specifically advised to ensure that at least 80 per cent of new positive cases have their contacts traced and quarantined within 72 hours of confirmation of the positivity, the ministry said.

States have developed several mobile apps to keep track of high risk population including the senior and elderly population, people with co-morbidities, pregnant women and small children, it said.

Meanwhile, India's drug regulator has asked the Drugs Controllers in States and UTs to instruct the enforcement officials to keep strict vigil to prevent the blackmarketing and sale of the anti-viral remdesivir injection above MRP.