Despite population of 1.3 billion, India able to manage COVID-19 relatively well: Rajesh Bhushan

New Delhi [India], July 9 : The Union Health Ministry on Thursday said that despite a population of 1.3 billion people, India has been able to manage COVID-19 relatively well and the cases per million of the population in the country remains among the lowest in the world.
Addressing a press conference, Rajesh Bhushan, OSD, Ministry of Health, said, "We are the second-most populous country of the world. Despite a population of 1.3 billion people, India has been able to manage COVID-19 relatively well. If you look at cases per million population, it still remains amongst lowest in the world."
He said that we have 15 deaths per million population whereas we have countries where it is 40 times as much.
"Today we have 538 cases per million population. It's as per World Health Organization (WHO) situation report. Case per million population in some countries are at least 16-17 times more than what it is in India. We have 15 deaths per million population whereas we have countries where it is 40 times as much." Bhushan said.
"When we talk of case load of COVID-19 in India, it is 2,69,000 people. This tells us that at the end of the day we've managed a situation where our health care infrastructure is not unduly burdened and is not creaking due to the pressure," added Bhushan.
India reported the highest single-day spike of 24,879 new positive cases and 487 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 7,67,296, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Out of the total number of cases, 2,69,789 are active, 4,76,378 have been cured/discharged/migrated and 21,129 have died.