The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India crossed 1.5 million on Tuesday evening, with the country recording the world's fastest growth rate of the cases. With a single-day increase of 47,703 cases, the total number of positive cases has reached 14,83,156.
India continues to be the third worst hit country behind the US (4.2 million cases) and Brazil (2.4 million). The number of cases is skyrocketing in the country at a rate 3.6 per cent which is significantly higher than that in the US (1.7 per cent) and Brazil (2.4 per cent).
However, India's COVID-19 fatality rate is progressively falling from 3.33 per cent on June 18 to 2.25 per cent as on date, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday. It also said the recovery rate increased from around 53 per cent in mid-June to more than 64 per cent. For the fifth day in a row, India has seen more than 30,000 recoveries per day.
Source: Union health ministry
With 35,176 patients discharged in a 24-hour span, the total recoveries surged to 9,52,743.
With 654 fresh fatalities, the number of those who succumbed to the disease in the country rose to 33,425.
"India continues its march as a country with one of the lowest fatality rates in the world," the ministry said in a statement.
Source: Union health ministry
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, it said.
“Under the guidance of Central government, State/UT governments have focused on reducing the fatalities by effectively managing the severe cases and prioritising care of the high-risk population using field health care workers leading to decrease in the CFR across the country,” the ministry said.
In another statement, the ministry said India has created and maintained a new high of testing more than 5 lakh COVID-19 in a single day over two consecutive days.
“This is the outcome of the combined and focused efforts of Union and State/UT Governments on aggressive testing as the first important step in the early detection and isolation of COVID-19 positive cases. On 26th July, India tested a total of 5,15,000 samples and on 27th July, a total of 5,28,000 samples were tested,” it said.
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 ministry said.
