India Has One Of The Highest Recovery Rates Due To Flexible Lockdown: PM Modi

India has 88 per cent recovery rate, one of the highest in the world because of the flexible lockdown approach, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said.

The PM's statement came while he was addressing the inaugural function of the 16th Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020. "India has one of the highest recovery rates, 88 per cent. This happened because India was one of the first countries to adopt a flexible lockdown when the total cases were just a few hundred," PM Modi said.

PM Modi said despite the massive size, scale and diversity, we were able to keep the COVID-19 death rate very low due "to people power and people-driven approach",

NDTV reported.

The Prime Minister said India encouraged use of masks, began effective contact tracing, and deploy the Rapid Antigen test at a very early stage of pandemic.
"India is working on putting a well-established vaccine delivery mechanism in place. This digitised network, along with digital health ID, will be used to ensure immunisation of our citizens," he said.

Talking about the meeting, the Prime Minister commended the scale of the programme and said, "In 15 years you have engaged several nations. The nature of the issues addressed is diverse. You have addressed problems such as antimicrobial resistance, maternal and child health, agriculture, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene."

He added that the global pandemic has made us realise the importance of teamwork as diseases do not discriminate on the grounds of faith, race, gender, or colour.

The Grand Challenges Annual Meeting 2020 has been co-hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, the Indian Council of Medical Research, and NITI Aayog. Other hosts include Grand Challenges Canada, the United States Agency for International Development and Wellcome.