India must spend more to combat outbreaks such as COVID-19 in future, says analyst

With an unexpected spike in COVID-19 cases, India has extended the countrywide lockdown till May 17, 2020. The move reflects India’s dependency on lockdown to contain the pandemic amid poor healthcare spending and infrastructure, says data and analytics company GlobalData.

According to GlobalData COVID-19 dashboard, as of May 4, although India has 42,505 confirmed cases, fatality rate in India was 3.27% versus 7.06% worldwide, 5.59% in China and 5.84 % in the USA. As of May 3, GlobalData forecasts 10,177,238 confirmed COVID-19 cases in India in a high transmission risk scenario versus 132,388 in a low transmission risk scenario by the end of two weeks from now on May 14.

“The COVID-19 pandemic shows the need for healthcare system bootstrap in India, as the country is unable to raise the healthcare spending by more than 3.8% of GDP [gross domestic product], as compared to the APAC average of 6.64%, even though the country stands at the top in out-of-pocket expenditure with 62.40%,” says GlobalData’s pharma analyst Bhavani Nelavelly.