India sees record COVID-19 recoveries in single day

As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in a 24-hour span till Thursday morning, the highest recorded in a day so far, taking the recovery rate to 63.18 per cent, the Union health ministry said.

The number of tests for detection of COVID-19 also crossed the 15-million mark as the number of cases surged to 12,38,635 on Thursday.

According to data updated at 8 am, total recoveries have climbed to 7,82,606 and exceeded the active cases of COVID-19 by 3,56,439 as on date.

A total of 1,50,75,369 samples have been tested up to July 22 with 3,50,823 samples being tested on Wednesday, Indian Council of Medical Research officials said.

With the highest-ever single-day spike of 45,720 cases, India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 12-lakh mark on Thursday, while the death toll mounted to 29,861 with a record 1,129 fatalities reported.

"One million tests were done in three days till Wednesday. The testing capacity has been increased to around 4 lakh per day," scientist and media coordinator at ICMR Lokesh Sharma said.

There are 1290 labs functional in the country which includes 897 government labs and 393 in the private sector.

"From a network of 13 COVID-19 labs in February 2020, the network has now expanded is about 1300 labs. The expansion of lab network has been paired with calibrated expansion of testing strategy, inclusion of newer testing platforms besides RT-PCR:- CBNAAT, TrueNat and Rapid Antigen test.

"All efforts have been made to increase access to testing even at district level. Efforts of ICMR to ramp up testing continue," said Dr Nivedita Gupta, senior scientist and coordinator of Lab Network, ICMR.

According to the health ministry, while the total number of recovered cases has jumped to 7,82,606, there has been appreciable growth in the recovery rate, which stands at 63.18 per cent.

This accomplishment can be attributed to the central government-led COVID-19 management strategies, it said.

Sustained efforts by the Centre, states and union territories are resulting in more effective containment, aggressive testing, and prompt and efficient clinical treatment strategies.

These are guided by the teams of domain experts in the Ministry of Health such as the Joint Monitoring Group and ably complemented by the technical experts at AIIMS-New Delhi, centres of excellence in various states and UTs, ICMR and the National Centre for Disease Control.

The Union government continues to coordinate with the efforts of the states and UTs by sending central teams of experts to areas witnessing increase in caseload and hand-holding of COVID hospitals in states through the tele-consultation programme led by AIIMS, New Delhi, the ministry said.

"These combined efforts have resulted in Case Fatality Rate being managed at low levels. It is 2.41 per cent, as on date, and steadily declining," it said.

This has also helped in reducing the actual caseload of COVID-19 cases which remains confined to 4,26,167 active patients only.