India has been reporting at least 1,000 deaths daily due to coronavirus infection since a couple of months taking the total number of deaths closer to 0.1 million.

The first person in India to succumb to the COVID-19 disease was on 12th March. He was a South Indian man with an international travel history. 787 new deaths were reported on Monday taking the total death count to 96,586 till now in India.

Epidemiology experts say that the increase in the death count is expected with the upsurge in the overall number of COVID-19 cases in the country.

Professor of epidemiology at Indian Institute of Public Health in Public Health Foundation of India, Dr Giridhara Babu, said that if the number of positive cases increases then there will be an increase in the number of deaths also, which is directly linked. It is linked to effective reporting of cases and deaths in due course, as few states who were lagging in terms of reporting the cases are now trying to gear up.

Gobally, India has the lowest case fatality rates (CFR), which is the proportion of people who have died from a disease between all the other individuals diagnosed. Currently, India’s CFR or death rate is around 1.5%, and the government is working to get the national death rate down to 1% or below.

People with comorbidities and the elderly population are at higher risk. Approximately, 70% of people who succumbed to the disease had one or more comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiac, liver or renal disease. Men are more at risk than women, with almost 69% men died due to the coronavirus disease as compared to 31% women.

The country’s current recovery rate is 82%, which shows a good sign of overall recovery inCOVID-19 patients. The total number of active patients has remained below 1 million for several consecutive days. According to government data, the active case load is around 15.5% of the total confirmed cases, and is steadily declining.

Source: Hindustan Times