The World Health Organisation (WHO) report of 4.7 million "excess" Covid deaths in India does not stand any "logic or fact", the chief of the country's Covid Working Group said today, calling the report "worrisome".
Speaking to NDTV this morning, Dr NK Arora, chief of India's Covid Working Group, said that while there can be a 15-20% discrepancy, India's robust and accurate death registration system (known as Civil Registration System, or CRS) ensures that a majority of virus-related deaths are covered.
"In 2018, 5 lakh extra deaths were reported by CRS over 2017. In 2019, 7 lakhs deaths were in excess of 2018. In 2020, 5 lakh deaths over 2019. What does this mean? This means that over the years the coverage of Covid deaths is improving. Now we are 98-99% of all the expected deaths are covered by CRS. The CRS has a very robust system. Over the years its system has improved," Mr Arora said.
In a report released Thursday, WHO said between January 2020 and December 2021, there were 4.7 million "excess" Covid deaths in India -- the maximum number that's 10 times the official figures and almost a third of Covid deaths globally. The global figure, according to the report, was 15 million -- more than double the official figure of 6 million.
Calling the report "preposterous and untenable", Mr Arora said," In 2018, around 85-88 per cent of deaths were covered. In 2020, 98-99 per cent of the deaths were covered. In 2018 and 2019, seven lakh deaths additional took place. Do we say that all were Covid? Out of the excess 4.6 lakh, 1.45 were the reported deaths. Those three lakh deaths took place due to other reasons. Even if we say 4 lakh deaths were extra, still it does not fit into the WHO estimates".
Asked if states could have failed to report deaths to the Centre, Mr Arora said, "There was lag and you know after the Supreme Court ruling, every state has been reporting there backlog deaths which were missed out earlier, and now they are part of the current system. Many times the numbers in Kerala and other well-performing states, additional deaths have been added up to the overall numbers. India is a huge country, so there will be some missing, but not "10 times" as is being reported".
"The other thing is if that was so much then people should have swamped after WHO because the Indian definition of Covid is any deaths occuring within 1 month as diagnosed as Covid. But nothing like that has happened. Relatives of 40 lakh people have not come to claim compensation. So there are several inconsistencies in the WHO report," he added.
AdvertisementMr Arora said that while there can be a 15-20% discrepancy, the numbers put out by the WHO in its report were "untenable".
"We have a robust system. There has been a gradual increase in the number of deaths. Even if we have missed 10-15 per cent deaths, there can't be anything like WHO has pointed out. Our deaths per million are very less. In 2020, journals predicted doom for us. They said we will take five years to immunize our one billion population, but this has been proved wrong."
AdvertisementIndia has strongly refuted the World Health Organisation's use of the mathematical model to calculate the number of Covid deaths, saying the "figure is totally removed from reality". Contending that the country has an "extremely robust" system of births and deaths registration, the Union health ministry, in its rebuttal, called the WHO's system of data collection "statistically unsound and scientifically questionable".
