WHO versus India on data of COVID Deaths

Kevadia: There has been a major clash between the Government and the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the data on deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It claimed that Covid-19 might have claimed as many as 47 lakh lives in India in 2020 and 2021.

The ongoing 14th conference of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare (CCHFW) strongly objected to a WHO report estimating 4.7 million (47 lakh) Covid-related fatalities in India as baseless and devoid of facts, sources said. 

In its report released on Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that nearly 15 million people were killed either by the coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the past two years, more than double the official death toll of six million. Most of the fatalities were in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

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According to the report, there were 4.7 million Covid deaths in India -- 10 times the official figures and almost a third of Covid deaths globally.

The three-day conference of the CCHFW, an apex advisory body of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), began here on Thursday. It is being chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya. Around 20 health ministers and representatives of some states are attending it.

The Union health ministry on Thursday strongly objected to the use of mathematical models by the WHO for projecting excess mortality estimates linked to the coronavirus pandemic in view of the availability of authentic data, saying the validity and robustness of the models used and the methodology of data collection are questionable.

India is likely to raise the issue at the World Health Assembly and required multilateral forums, sources in the ministry said.

India has been consistently objecting to the methodology adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates based on mathematical models, the ministry said in a statement.

"Despite India's objection to the process, methodology, and outcome of this modeling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India's concerns," it said.

The country's top health experts questioned the modelling methodology used by the WHO to estimate 4.7 million deaths in India due to COVID-19 or its impact, saying they were disappointed by the global health body's "one-size-fits-all" approach adopted to arrive at the figure. ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava, NITI Aayog Member (Health) V K Paul, and AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria rejected the report as untenable and unfortunate.

Rejecting the findings, Dr. V K Paul said India has been clearly telling the WHO with all humility and through diplomatic channels along with data and rational reasoning that it does not agree with the methodology that has been followed for the country.

Dr. Balram Bhargava said, "The important thing is that when we had Covid deaths occurring, we did not have a definition of death. Even the WHO did not have any definition for death...So for that definition, we looked at all the data that we had, and we came to the conclusion that 95% of the deaths that occurred after testing positive for COVID-19 were occurring in the first four weeks. So a cutoff of 30 days was given for the definition of death."

India had also informed the WHO that in view of the availability of authentic data published through the Civil Registration System (CRS) by the Registrar General of India (RGI), mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India.

"India firmly believes that such robust and accurate data generated through Legal Framework of a Member State must be respected, accepted and used by WHO rather than relying on less than accurate mathematical projection based on non-official sources of data," the statement added. 

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