India's Covid tally, fatality rate per million lowest in world

India's total number of coronavirus cases and fatalities per million population is one of the lowest in the world, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday even as the country's infection tally went past the 7 lakh-mark and the death toll rose to 20,160.

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 United States, Brazil, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom, 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 WHO report said.

India has ramped up its hospital infrastructure to adequately and effectively manage coronavirus cases, the ministry said.

The preparedness includes arrangement of oxygen support, ICU and ventilator facilities. As on July 7, there are 1,201 dedicated COVID hospitals, 2,611 COVID healthcare centres and 9,909 COVID care centres to look after patients with ‘very severe' to ‘very mild' coronavirus symptoms, it said.

"Such level of preparedness has shown results in continuously improving the recovery rate and resulting in low case fatality rate,” the ministry said.

"Early detection and timely effective clinical management of COVID-19 cases have resulted in increasing daily recoveries," it 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.

"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.

Enhanced focus on “Test, Trace, Treat” augmented with various measures has facilitated widespread COVID-19 testing by states and Union territories.

This has resulted in more than 2 lakh tests being conducted per day, the ministry said.

It also said that during the last 24 hours, 2,41,430 samples have been tested.

With this, the total number of samples tested for COVID-19 nationwide stands at 1,02,11,092.

According to the health ministry, the testing lab network of the country continues to expand with more number of laboratories being added in various states and UTs.

With 793 labs in the government sector and 322 private labs, there are as many as 1,115 labs in the country, it added.