Corona briefing: Recovery rate rises to 41.6%; Covid_19 testing scaled up to 1.1 lakhs tests daily, says Health Ministry

INDIA: During a briefing on the COVID-19 situation, Union Health and family welfare Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said that the recovery rate of patients suffering from coronavirus disease in India has improved to 41.6%, which is the highest so far. He also mentioned that the fatality rate of India is significantly better than the rest of the world.

A total of 60,490 patients have recovered so far from COVID19. Recovery rate continues to improve and presently it is 41.61%. The fatality rate is one among the lowest in the world, it is 2.87% now, said Lav Agarwal in the press conference.

“When the first lockdown started, then the recovery rate was around 7.1 per cent. The recovery rate during the second lockdown was 11.42 per cent, which further rose to 26.59 per cent, ” he further added.

Additionally, The health ministry also said that 4.4 per lakh population across the world have died due to the disease, India has recorded 0.3 deaths per lakh population.

“4.4 deaths per lakh population have been reported for the world, while India has reported about 0.3 deaths per lakh population, which is among the lowest in the world. This has been due to lockdown, timely identification and management of COVID19 cases” said Joint secretary.

Dr. Balram Bhargava, Director General, Indian council of Medical research (ICMR) said that presently, the daily count of testing have gone up to 1.1 lakhs. He also said that 612 labs (430 ICMR and 182 private) are functioning across India currently.

“The testings have gone up in the last few months. 1.1 lakh samples are tested daily” said Balram Bhargava.

“From just one COVID19 testing lab in Pune to 430 public labs and 182 private labs across the nation, India has significantly expanded its testing in the last 3 months.” he further added.

Meanwhile, the report citing a government statement mentioned that the country currently has a testing capacity of 1.4 lakh which soon will be raised to 2 lakh samples in a day. Currently, over 30 lakhs sample testing has been done in the country which is significantly lower compared to other prominent countries.

The spread of novel coronavirus in India has crunched over 1.45 lakhs people and around 4,127 people have died due to the pandemic outbreak so far.