Written By: Longjam Dineshwori | Published : May 21, 2020 10:53 AM IST
A doctor examining a woman at a COVID-19 screening centre.
Even as India enters the fourth phase of its countrywide lockdown that is being implemented to curb the spread of COVID-19 infection, the number of infected patients and death cases keeps rising. Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare claimed that India has been able to significantly decelerate the pace of COVID-19 spread, as compared to other countries.
Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary at the Health Ministry, said that more than 39.6 per cent of the confirmed COVID-19 cases have recovered. This high recovery rate suggests that the disease is curable and the clinical management protocols adopted by India are effective, he added while speaking at a press conference on Wednesday.
According to data on the Union Health Ministry website, currently the number of confirmed cases in the country is 1,12,359 and as many as 3,435 people have lost their lives to this deadly virus. As of today, 45,299 patients have been cured and active cases in the country stand at 6,3624.
Of all the active cases under treatment, 2.9 per cent require oxygen support, about 3 per cent require ICU support and 0.45 per cent require ventilator support - Agarwal said.
Agarwal stressed that India has been concurrently focusing on upgrading the COVID dedicated health infrastructure, which has led to fewer cases in the country.
Compared to the global rate of 62.3 cases per one lakh population, India has only 7.9 cases/lakh population. Also, while the average mortality rate per lakh population in the global scale is 4.2, India's figure is pegged at 0.2.
The relatively low death figure is possible due to the timely case identification and clinical management of the cases, Agarwal noted.
Northeast has been considered safer than rest of India when it comes to COVID-19 outbreak. But the virus is slowly spreading in the region too.
Assam reported 44 fresh cases in the past 24 hours, bringing its tally of COVID-19 patients to 185, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Wednesday.
Out of the 185 positive cases, 48 people have recovered from the disease, three cases have migrated to other states, and four died
Health officials in Manipur have also confirmed 18 people new cases, including 12 women, in the past 24 hours. They are all returnees from other states, 14 from Chennai and four from Delhi. With the fresh cases, the total number of positive cases in Manipur rose to 25 with 23 active cases.
A person in Meghalaya was tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday night, just 24 hours after the state's 13th and last patient was pronounced cured.
Four more persons tested positive for COVID-19 in Tripura on Tuesday night, taking the state's total tally to 173, though only 38 of them are active.
Globally, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases have reached 4,801,202 including 318,935 deaths, as pert the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Even as its spread slows in some areas of Asia and Europe, the novel coronavirus continues to pose threat around the world. Over 100,000 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in last 24 hrs, the largest number of cases since its outbreak, the WHO said on Wednesday.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed the alarming numbers at his daily briefing on Wednesday. He said that two-thirds of those cases came from just four countries.
According to figures collected by Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Centre, the global death toll has crossed 324,000. The US currently has the highest confirmed cases, with 1.5m, followed by Russia, Brazil and the UK.
(With inputs from IANS)
