Death rate shows India's coronavirus response a success, says PM Modi

Rate of fatalities in India is less than 12, says the Prime Minister in speech to Indian American physicians.

India has succeeded in containing coronavirus cases and deaths due to people's cooperation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, referring to a nationwide lockdown first implemented on March 24 for three weeks.

"As against the death rate of 350 individuals per million in the US and over 600 per million in European nations like the UK, Italy and Spain, the rate of fatalities in India is less than 12," he said.

"Uttar Pradesh has been remarkably successful in fighting against the coronavirus. And same is the case with several other states as well," Modi said in a speech to a virtual meeting of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) on Saturday.

"Rural parts of the country have largely remained untouched from this pandemic." Without people's cooperation, the success would not have been possible in the world's second-highest populated country. India defied the fears of the world's topmost experts in this regard, said Modi.

Modi said the pandemic had been used as an opportunity to improve health care. "For instance, at the start of the coronavirus, there was only one Covid-19 testing lab. Now there are 1,000,” he said, referring to the disease caused by the coronavirus.

India, which imported most of its personnel protection equipment (PPE) kits at the start of the pandemic, was now almost self-reliant and in a position to export them. The country is making more than 30 lakh N95 masks per week. More than 50,000 new ventilators are being made available to the healthcare sector, all made inside the country, he said.

This for the first time that an Indian prime minister addressed the annual meeting of the AAPI, a representative body of more than 80,000 Indian-American doctors in the US.

Modi said he was proud of the achievements and contribution of the Indian-origin physicians across the world in the battle against Covid-19.