Convinced with the Union Health Ministry’s assertion that coronavirus fatality rate is declining and just less than one per cent of the 6 lakh infected patients in the country are on ventilators, the high-level Group of Ministers (GOM) on COVID-19 has allowed export of indigenously-made ventilators.
“The decision was taken as India continues to maintain a progressively declining low rate of fatality among COVID-19 patients, which currently stands at 2.15 per cent, “which means fewer numbers of active cases are on ventilators”, said an official from the Ministry.
He pointed out that India continues to maintain the record of registering and maintaining the lowest COVID-19 mortality rate at the global platform. The Case Fatality Rate stands at 2.15% today and it is lowest since the first lockdown started. It has been continuously reducing from around 3.33% in mid-June.
The Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AIMED) too has been urging the Government to allow exports of ventilators over concerns of a supply glut. It said that there have been no orders from the Government for more than a month and they have large inventories of ventilators piling up. The Government, fearing shortage, had ordered a ban on exports of ventilators on March 18.
Presently, out of the total Active Cases, only 0.28 per cent patients are on ventilators, 1.61 per cent patients need ICU support and 2.32 per cent are on oxygen support.
The total number of recovered cases in the country is nearly 11 lakh. With 36,569 patients discharged in the last 24 hours, the total recoveries have jumped to 10,94,374. The recovery rate stands at 64.53 per cent amongst the infected patients.
While the CFR has been kept low, successful implementation of effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standardised clinical management protocols based on a comprehensive standard of care approach have resulted in a consistent addition of more than 30,000 recoveries daily, he said.
Also, 3,231 dedicated COVID Health Centres with 2,07,239 isolation beds, 18,613 ICU beds and 74,130 oxygen-supported beds and 6,668 ventilators have been made operational. Moreover, 10,755 COVID Care Centres with 10,02,681 beds are now available to combat COVID-19, he added.