Health Ministry: India's COVID-19 fatality rate declining, recovery rate improving

The fatality rate due to COVID-19 in India's COVID-19 has improved and it now stands at 2.83 percent, much lower than in countries like the US, the UK, France and Italy, the Union Health Ministry said on Monday.

India is the seventh worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the number of infections, after the US, Brazil, Russia, the UK, Spain and Italy.

While the recovery rate in coronavirus infections is improving and has reached 48.19 percent in India, there has been steady decline in the case fatality which is now 2.83 per cent, the health ministry said.

The novel coronavirus death toll rose to 5,598 in India on Tuesday with 204 more fatalities, while 8,171 new cases took the number of infections to 1,98,706, the Health Ministry said.

The recovery rate, now 48.19 per cent, has improved from 11.42 per cent on April 15 to 26.59 per cent on May 3 and to 38.29 per cent on May 18, the ministry said. 

The case fatality rate is 2.83 per cent as against 6.19 per cent globally, the ministry said.

From 3.3 per cent on April 15, India's COVID-19 fatality rate declined to 3.25 per cent on May 3 and came down further to 3.15 per cent on May 18, it said.

"A steady decline can be seen in the case fatality rate in the country. The relatively low death rate is attributed to the continued focus on surveillance, timely case identification and clinical management of the cases," the ministry said.