COLOMBO, July 28 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Health Ministry said the country's COVID-19 recovery rate was high above the global rate and those highly affected countries, local media reported on Tuesday.
According to the ministry, Sri Lanka's current COVID-19 recovery rate is 75.7 percent, compared with an average 61.21 percent in the world, 63.9 percent in India and 47.81 percent in the United States.
The recovery rate of South Africa is 59.51 percent, 67.53 percent in Brazil and 73.88 percent in Russia. Only 23.9 percent of all COVID-19 patients detected from Sri Lanka are in hospitals by now, the Health Ministry said.
Sri Lanka has to date performed over 155,000 PCR tests for the virus from Feb. 18, which has cost the government an estimated 6.7 million U.S. dollars.
According to Director General of Health Services Anil Jasingha, the positivity rate conducted from the PCR tests presently stood at 1.8 percent, whereas initially the positivity rate was 3 percent.
"This shows the infection is now much less within the society from within the target groups which continue to be tested," Jasingha said.
Till Tuesday evening, the total number of COVID-19 patients reached 2,807 patients out of which 2,296 patients had recovered and been discharged. Enditem
