new delhi the elderly who constitute 10 of indias population accounted for over 50 of the countrys covid19 deaths the government said on tuesday besides 73 of covid19 deaths were among those with comorbidities the health ministry said arguing that india was able to manage covid19 treatment and reduce deaths better than many other countriespeople aged 60 to 74 years comprising 8 of the total population accounted for 38 of covid19 deaths those above 74 years representing 2 of population constituted 12 of total deaths the analysis was shared by the centre even as the novel coronavirus death toll rose to 5598 with 204 more fatalities while 8171 new cases took the total number of infections to over 198 lakhhealth ministry joint secretary lav agarwal said it might not be enough to see indias numbers in isolation without considering the population size and its death and infection rates per lakh or per million he was reacting to commentary that the country had become the seventh worst hit globally our covid19 fatality rate of 282 is among the lowest in the world compared to a global fatality rate of 613 we have been able to achieve this due to timely identification of cases and proper clinical management agarwal said he also said indias covid19 fatality per lakh population was 041 against 49 globallyit was imperative that highrisk people took required preventive action and also took timely action based on medical advice in case they experienced covid19 symptoms agarwal said the government also maintained that there was no underreporting of covid19 deaths in india and states were doing causality assessment and attributing cause of death accordinglyan icmr official said not all deaths could be put down to covid19 and that people who died in hospitals were assessed in terms of their medical conditionwatch covid19 deaths how senior citizens are at the highest risk in india