Over 58% patients cured of Covid in India, recovery rate improving: Centre

NEWDEHI: India’s Covid-19 recovery rate rose to 58.56% on Sunday with the difference between the recovered and active cases crossing 100,000, the Union health ministry said on Sunday.

“The recovered cases have exceeded the active cases by 106,661 as on Sunday. Thus, so far, a total of 3,09,712 patients have been cured of Covid-19. The recovery rate is 58.56% amongst Covid-19 patients. During the last 24 hours, a total of 13,832 Covid-19 patients have been cured. Presently, there are 2,03,051 active cases and all are under active medical supervision,” said the ministry in a statement.

“India’s recovery rate has been steadily going up, which is good news. More than 50% of those having tested positive have recovered and taken out of active medical supervision,” said a senior health ministry official on condition of anonymity.

Experts said rising recoveries may suggest that the outbreak was stabilising.

“When the number of those infected in a day is the same as number of people recovering then it usually highlights the fact that the disease outbreak is going to stabilize and start declining in some time, unless some other variables come in such as floating population or new births that change the entire dynamics,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, professor and head, community medicine department, Safdarjung Hospital.

The government has focussed on aggressive testing, with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) adding more laboratories and introducing newer testing techniques. India’s current capacity is about 350,000 a day, with 200,000 samples tested daily on average.

In the past 24 hours, 231,095 samples were tested in 1,036 diagnostic labs dedicated for Covid-19, including 749 government facilities and 287 private labs.

The total number of samples tested stands at 8.2 million since the first sample was tested on January 22.

› The recovered cases have exceeded the active cases by 106,661 as on Sunday. Thus, so far, a total of 309,712 patients have been cured of Covid.

HEALTH MINISTRY STATEMENT