Huge infrastructure helped achieve recovery rate of 82%, death rate at 1.6%: Harsh Vardhan

Addressing the COVID-19 situation in the country, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan revealed that the nation's massive COVID-dedicated health infrastructure had helped India keep its death rate in check and steadily improve its recovery rate. "Huge infrastructure build-up including dedicated COVID hospitals and quarantine centres, the supply of PPEs and medical equipment helped India in recording recovery rate of 82 per cent and a death rate of less than 1.6 per cent. We aim to bring this under 1 per cent soon," the Union Health Minister said

"More than five million patients have been infected with Coronavirus but the healthcare system of India has shown great efficiency in not only providing diagnostic and management facilities but also keeping the mortality at minimum and recovery at maximum," Dr Vardhan said. 

He also hailed all the states and UTs for following stringent containment strategies which had contributed to the nation's continuously rising Recovery Rate and progressively falling Case Fatality Rate. "We have successfully ramped up our testing capacity which has touched nearly 15 lakh milestone on Friday with more than 1,800 testing labs spread across the country," he said. "I have confidence in the scientific developments taking place in the field of treatment and vaccines for COVID-19 and soon India will achieve more success in our fight against COVID-19," he added.

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Health Minister lauds AIIMS

Speaking at the 65th AIIMS Foundation Day, the Health Minister also lauded AIIMS for being a front-runner in battling the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr Harsh Vardhan said that in the last six months, AIIMS had undertaken a huge responsibility of providing care to patients suffering from COVID-19 and had expanded innovation in areas of research, guiding colleagues across the country, and developing new methods of teaching and communication. 

"Over the years, AIIMS has students from the USA, UK, Australia, Germany, etc and the government is making efforts to spread the services of AIIMS to every nook and corner of the country." 

The Health Minister also inaugurated an exhibition themed 'AIIMS in COVID Times' that highlights the contribution of AIIMS in dealing with the public health emergency.

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(Agency Inputs)