With over 72 lakh recoveries, India has maximum number of recovered COVID-19 patients in world: Health Ministry

India with more than 72 lakh recovered COVID-19 patients has the maximum number of recoveries in the world, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday.

Addressing a press conference, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said that there has been a continuous decline in average daily deaths due to the COVID-19 in the last five weeks.

"The recovery rate is at 90.62 per cent currently. The cumulative positivity rate is on a constant decline, and currently, it is at 7.61 per cent. If we see the number of cases per million, then India has the least cases per million people. We have 5,700 cases per million. Most developed western economies have double or even five times more cases per million than India," he said, adding more than 10 crore tests for COVID-19 have been conducted so far.

"The case fatality rate is also on the decline and 58 per cent of new deaths that are reported in the last 24 hours are from five states and UTs (Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka). The case fatality rate was 1.77 per cent on September 1; now it has reduced to 1.50 per cent. There are multiple states and UTs in the country where the fatality rate is less than 1.50 per cent," Bhushan stated.

He added that 78 per cent of active cases are present in 10 states and UTs. "Cases have increased in Kerala, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Delhi during the festival season," he said.

The Health Ministry further said that initially, it took 57 days to register a recovery of 10 lakh people from one lakh in India, however, the latest 10 lakh recoveries have been achieved in 13 days, which is a satisfactory sign.

Dr VK Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog; and Balram Bhargava, Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research; were also present during the press conference.

( With inputs from ANI )