The COVID-19 fatality rate in India is 2.87%, the lowest among countries badly hit by the pandemic, the government said on Tuesday even as the death toll rose to 4,167 and the number of coronavirus cases climbed to 1, 45,380 in the country.
Joint Secretary in the Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said from 3.38% in April, the fatality rate in the country has come down to 2.87% as against 6.4% globally, and attributed the timely lockdown, early detection and management of coronavirus infection cases as the main reasons for the low death toll.
The country has been registering 6,500 new cases daily for five days in a row and is among the 10 top nations worst hit by the pandemic.
"For India, the fatality rate is as low as 2.87%, one of the lowest among countries which have reported high number of COVID-19 cases," Agarwal said.
Responding to a question on why the country's death rate is one of the lowest in the world, ICMR DG Balram Bhargava said there is no substantiative factor behind it.
"We have surprisingly found a low fatality rate in India and which is a very good thing. Ultimately we are interested in a patient surviving whether he gets COVID-19 or not. There are several hypothesis such as we are living in bad hygiene, have higher immunity and have been given certain vaccines like BCG and those for tuberculosis, but these all are hypothesis and we cannot say anything clearly on any factor," he said.
Agarwal, however, said that the country's graded response to COVID-19 and timely identification of cases along with their clinical management played a major role in keeping the death rate low.
"If cases are detected on time they do not turn serious and to the extent automatically the fatality rate will be low," he said.
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