India doing better in outcome ratio of COVID-19, need to improve it further: Health Ministry

Union Health Ministry on Friday said that India is doing better than many countries on outcome ratio - the ratio of number of COVID-19 recoveries versus deaths - and it stands at 80:20.

Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said at the daily briefing on COVID-19 that they have calculated outcome ratio, which is the cases recovered versus those in which death has been reported.

"In our country 80 per cent cases people are recovering and in 20 per cent cases death is being reported. If we compare with other countries, we are doing better and we need to improve it. All our actions are focused on speeding up vaccine development. We are working on recombinant BCG, convalescent plasma therapy, monoclonal antibodies to fight COVID-19," he said.

Agarwal informed that as many as 5 lakh rapid antibody testing kits are being distributed to states and districts where a high case burden has been observed. "A total of 1,919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1.73 lakh isolation beds, 21,800 ICU beds readied in India," he said.

Agarwal said that the government is working to increase testing capacity.

"Our focus is on developing new, rapid and accurate diagnostic testing kits which can give results in 30 minutes, innovative pooling strategies and indigenous synthesis of kits. We are aiming to make 10 lakh RT-PCR kits by the month of May indigenously," he said.

He said a meeting of group of ministers was held on Friday to chalk out the further direction with respect to lockdown.

"Efforts of Science and Technolgy institutes in the areas of diagnosis, vaccines, drugs, hospital equipment accessories and general wellness have been reviewed," he said.

Agarwal informed that 13.6 per cent of the people have recovered from COVID-19.

"A total of 1,749 people have been cured, which is equal to 13.6 per cent of the cases. With 1,007 fresh cases of coronavirus reported in the last 24 hours, the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country has reached 13,387. A total of 23 more deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours," Agarwal said.

( With inputs from ANI )

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