New Delhi : India may have the second highest number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases, but the country has one of the lowest deaths per million in the world, Union health ministry said.
It posted a tweet on Wednesday morning which listed the number of Covid-19 fatalities per million in India and other countries of the world. At 79, India has the lowest deaths per million among countries with highest caseload. Brazil leads the list with 706 deaths per million. The global average is 138, and India is below that, the health ministry data showed.
In another graph posted in the same tweet, the ministry showed India has one of the lowest cases per million in the world. The global average, according to the health ministry chart, is 4,794; India has 5,199 Covid-19 cases per million. Brazil has the highest number of cases per million (23,911) followed by the United States (23,072).
The health ministry also said that India’s recovery rate is highest in the world.
The ministry’s tweet comes on a day when India recorded a marginal increase (a little over 8,000) in the number of new Covid-19 cases. India’s caseload rose to 72,39,389 with 63,509 infections being reported in a day, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease crossed 63 lakh, the health ministry dashboard showed on Wednesday morning.
The recovery rate stands at 87.05 per cent.
The coronavirus death toll climbed to 1,10,586 with the virus claiming 730 lives in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.
For six days in a row the active cases of COVID-19 remained below 9 lakh.There are 8,26,876 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 11.42 per cent of the total caseload, while the recoveries have surged to 63,01,927, the data stated.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which is studying reinfection among coronavirus (Covid-19) cases, has identified three to date that are being looked into, said Dr Balram Bhargava, director-general (D-G), ICMR, on Tuesday.
“We are studying the reinfection cases. So far, three such cases have been reported; two from Mumbai and one from Ahmedabad. There are various cut-off days that are being referred to for reinfection. Though the public is going by up to 110 days, we are taking 100 as the cut-off period because the antibodies last until then,” said Dr Bhargava.
A recent study, which is published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, has found that reinfection could occur in Covid-19 patients, and the symptoms would likely to be more severe following the relapse of the viral infection.
“The World Health Organisation (WHO) has documented about two dozen cases of Covid-19 reinfection. We have established telephonic contact with the three cases of reinfection as part of our study. They are being looked into,” he added.
On Sunday, Union minister for health and family welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan had also said that the ICMR had set up a committee of experts to study reported cases of reinfection among Covid-19 patients.
“The ICMR has commissioned a study to look into the cases of reinfection in the country. However, their results are still awaited,” the minister had said while responding to queries from the public on social media as part of the fifth episode of his Sunday Samvaad programme.
Dr Bhargava said though SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, was found to be mutating, the changes were negligible.
“They will have no impact on the effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccine that is under various stages of development in several countries around the world. Major changes, which will have a bearing on vaccine efficacy, take up to 15 years and are called antigenic shifts. A minor antigenic drift is being reported,” he added.
India’s Covid-19 tally on Wednesday crossed the 7.2 million case mark, as the country recorded 63,509 new infections in the last 24 hours, as per the Union health ministry’s dashboard.
This latest rise in cases is a marginal increase from Tuesday’s spike of 55,342 as the country continues to report a relatively lesser number of infections per day.
However, despite the latest rise, the number of active cases in the country are still below the nine lakh mark, at 826,876 or 11.69% of the total number of cases. The number of discharged cases, meanwhile, rose to 6,301,927 with 74,632 new recoveries in the last 24 hours, more than the number of new cases.
The current death toll stands at 110,856 with 730 new fatalities in this period. Recoveries and deaths contribute 86.78% and 1.53% of the total number of cases respectively.
These latest figures come a day before the country starts reopening further, as cinema halls, schools, entertainment parks and swimming pools are set to open across the country with strict Covid-19 protocols in place. On September 30, in its guidelines for the fifth and current phase of the nationwide unlock, the Union home ministry had given permission for these places to reopen from October 15.
India continues to be the second worst-hit country, after the United States and is ahead of Brazil. However, it also has the highest number of recovered cases in the world, contributing to over 20% of global recoveries, a fact that the health ministry has frequently highlighted in its press briefings over the last few days.
