India's COVID-19 death lowest in world: Govt

New Delhi: Even as the total COVID-19 cases have climbed to 1,45,380, the Centre is not much worried about the number of deaths happening in the country due to Coronavirus as India has registered one of the lowest COVID-19 fatality rates in the world.

As per the Union Health Ministry, the mortality rate of Coronavirus patients in the country has now reduced to 2.87 per cent from 3.38 per cent in April as India has reported about 0.3 deaths per lakh population which are among the lowest in the world. Till now, the deadly virus infection has claimed 4,167 lives in the country.

"Timely lockdown and early detection of Coronavirus cases are the main reasons behind the low death toll in the country. While 4.4 deaths per lakh population have been reported across the world, India has witnessed about 0.3 deaths per lakh population," said joint secretary (health) Lav Agarwal.

"In terms of fatality rate, we have surprisingly found a low fatality rate in India, which is very good. There are several hypotheses on this, but we can't say anything clearly on any factor. Hope it continues," said Balram Bhargava, DG Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

"With 2,770 new recoveries in a single day, the recovery rate has increased to 41.6 per cent. At present, India has 10.7 COVID-19 cases per lakh population in comparison to 69.9 cases per lakh population worldwide," the official said, adding that when the first lockdown started, then the recovery rate was around 7.1 per cent, which improved to 11.42 per cent during the second lockdown and it rose further to 26.59 per cent. As of now, total 60,491 patients have recovered.

India on Tuesday reported 6,535 new COVID-19 cases and 146 new deaths in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the ICMR has conducted 31,26,119 tests so far at its 612 labs that include 430 diagnostic centres in the ICMR network and 182 in the private network. The ICMR has conducted 92,528 tests in the last 24 hours.