Over 51 percent of the patients who died due to COVID-19 were older than 60 years, said the Union health ministry in a briefing
Providing data on critical patients in India, the government on August 25 said out of the total COVID-19 cases in the country, 0.29 percent were on ventilators, 1.92 percent in ICUs and 2.7 percent of the patients required oxygen support.
The government also said the price of an RT-PCR test has been brought down to Rs 300 per kit from Rs 2,000 per kit in March.
Over 51 percent of the patients who died due to COVID-19 were older than 60 years, said the Union health ministry in its briefing, adding while over 69 percent who died were men, 31 percent were women.
"Active cases are only 22.2 percent of the total cases. The recovery rate is now more than 75 percent," said Rajesh Bhushan, secretary, Union health ministry.
The government also said India is in talks with Russia for the Sputnik-5 vaccine, and that some "initial information" has been shared between the two countries.
The government said the home ministry has not formulated any guidelines with respect to reopening of schools. Reports had earlier indicated that the government will release Unlock 4.0 guidelines shortly, and that the Delhi Metro is likely to resume services from September 1.
"The COVID-19 mortality rate in India stands at 1.58 percent, which is one of the lowest in the world. In the last 24 hours, the number of active cases has reduced by 6,400," Bhushan said.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said during the briefing that while the results of the first round of the nationwide sero-survey will be available this week, the second round of the survey has already begun.
"ICMR sero-survey's publication is in progress. It should appear by this week in the Indian Journal of Medical Research. It has been peer reviewed," said Balram Bhargava, director general, ICMR.