India has lowest cases and deaths / million population between five most affected countries: Dr Vardhan

Briefing the attendees at the 18th meeting of the high-level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19, Chairperson, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare stated that the global comparison between the five most affected countries depicted that India has one of the lowest cases per million (538) and deaths per million (15) compared the global average of 1453 and 68.7, respectively.

Within the country, eight states (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat) contribute to around 90 per cent of the active caseload and 49 districts account for 80 per cent of the active caseload, as on July 9, 2020. Moreover, six states (Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) account for 86 per cent of total deaths, and 32 districts account for 80 per cent deaths. The GoM was briefed that special efforts were made in the regions showing higher Case Fatality Rate.

Terming it a ‘significant achievement’, data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, shows that India’s number of recovered cases has overshot the number of COVID-19 active cases by 2,06,588 as of July 9, 2020. The number of recovered cases is 1.75 times the number of active cases. During the last 24 hours, a total of 19,547 patients have been cured, taking the cumulative figure of recoveries among COVID-19 patients to 4,76,377 as of July 9.

The MoH&FW attributes these results to the ‘focussed attention on effective surveillance through house-to-house contact tracing, early detection, and isolation as well as timely and effective clinical management of COVID-19 cases’.

Presently, there are 2,69,789 active cases and all are under active medical supervision.

India’s COVID-19 recovery rate is also steadily increasing. The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients has increased to 62.09 per cent today.