India ranks world number 5 in Covid deaths

India is now the fifth country in the world with the highest number of deaths due to Covid. The country is already recording over 50,000 cases a day and there are over 1.6 million people affected in the country.

India has replaced Italy as the fifth country in the world in the number of deaths according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Ahead of India is the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Mexico.

Though the number of Covid-19 cases are high in India, it has conducted over six lakh tests in the last 24 hours, according to Union Health Ministry which called this a landmark.

The Indian government says it plans to continue to implement the strategy of comprehensive testing, tracking and treatment to effectively tackle the pandemic. “The objective is to raise the testing capacity to 10 lakhs tests per day in the medium term,” said the health ministry in a tweet.

Recoveries have also increased in the country. The number of recovered patient crossed the one million-mark on Thursday and is now 1.9 times the total active cases.

To date, more than 17.2 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 671,000 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University.