India's COVID-19 fatality rate declines to 2.25 pc; recovery rate rises to over 64 pc: Health ministry

India's COVID-19 fatality rate has progressively declined to 2.25 per cent from 3.33 per cent on June 18 , while the recovery rate increased from around 53 per cent in mid-June to more than 64 per cent now, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday.

With 35,176 patients discharged in a 24-hour span, the total recoveries surged to 9,52,743 and exceed the active coronavirus cases by 4,55,755, it said. For the fifth day in a row, India has seen more than 30,000 recoveries per day.

The country has reported 14,83,156 cases till Tuesday, while the death toll is 33,425, the ministry data updated at 8 am showed. "The COVID-19 case fatality rate (CFR) has reduced from around 3.33 per cent in mid-June to 2.25 per cent today,” the ministry said.

"India continues its march as a country with one of the lowest fatality rates in the world," it said while underlining that the achievement was a result of effective implementation of containment strategy combined with house-to-house surveys, aggressive testing and standardised clinical management protocols based on holistic standard of care approach.

The ministry said such an approach ensured that hospitals were left unburdened with supervised home isolation for asymptomatic patients.

Under the guidance of the central government, state and Union territory (UT) governments have focused on reducing fatalities by effectively managing severe cases and prioritising care of the high-risk population using field healthcare workers, leading to decrease in the COVID-19 case fatality rate (CFR) across the country, the ministry said.

The ramped up three-tier hospital infrastructure along with prompt and seamless patient management has helped in consistent increase in the recoveries, it said.

The recovery rate among coronavirus infected patients has seen a sharp increase from around 53 per cent in mid-June to 64.24 per cent as on Tuesday, according to the ministry data. The actual active case load is presently 4,96,988 and all are under medical supervision.

The focused efforts on early detection and isolation along with handholding of states and UTs by expert teams of AIIMS, New Delhi for efficient clinical management of hospitalised cases and periodic visits of central teams, have borne results with continuously improving recovery rate, the ministry said.

Pursuant to “test, track, treat” strategy, India has created and maintained a new high of testing more than five lakh samples for COVID-19 in a single day over two consecutive days.

"This is the outcome of the combined and focused efforts of Union and state and UT governments on aggressive testing as the first important step in the early detection and isolation of COVID-19 positive cases," the ministry said.

On July 26, India tested a total of 5,15,000 samples and on July 27, a total of 5,28,082 samples were tested taking the cumulative number of samples tested so far to 1,73,34,885.

The graded and evolving response resulted in a testing strategy that steadily widened the testing network in the country, and the cumulative testing as on date has crossed 1.73 crore. The Tests Per Million has further improved to 12,562.

The testing capacity of India has received another boost with the induction of three high throughput testing facilities in Noida, Mumbai and Kolkata that were inaugurated virtually by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

The prime minister had noted that the deaths due to the coronavirus in India are much lower than many big countries. He had pointed out that India's recovery rate is also higher than other countries and is improving on a daily basis.

The testing lab network in the country is continuously strengthened with 1,310 labs in the country; 905 labs in the government sector and 405 private labs, the ministry said.

(Photo Credit: PTI)