India Strongly Objects as WHO Claims More Indians Died of Covid-19 than Accounted

India has strongly objected to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report which claimed that the country accounts for a significantly higher Covid-19 death toll than specified in official figures.

A statement by the government of India on Thursday objected to the methodology adopted by WHO to project excess mortality estimates based on mathematical models.

“Despite India’s objection to the process, methodology and outcome of this modelling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns,” it said.

Referring to the National Report, which contains nationwide data on births and deaths, the statement said: “These reports are in public domain. 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 UN body has claimed that almost three times as many people have died as a result of Covid-19 as the official data shows. It says there were 14.9 million excess deaths associated with Covid-19 by the end of 2021, whereas the official count of deaths directly attributable to the pandemic and reported to WHO in that period, from January 2020 to the end of December 2021, is slightly more than 5.4 million.

The report has suggested that 4.7 million people died in India as a result of the pandemic, mainly during a huge surge in May and June 2021. The Indian government, however, has put the death toll for the January 2020-December 2021 period at about 480,000.

According to a Reuters report, WHO said it had not yet fully examined new data provided this week by India, which has pushed back against the WHO estimates and issued its own mortality figures for all causes of death in 2020 on Tuesday. WHO said it may add a disclaimer to the report highlighting the ongoing conversation with India.

Economist Shamika Ravi on Friday tweeted, calling for transparency and arguing that the WHO’s “assumptions” cannot be accepted at face value.

https://twitter.com/shamikaravi/status/1522541333063532544?s=24&t=9eHvXHNa3kJD8aSfv8m7HA

In its statement, the government of India said it had pointed out the inconsistencies to WHO but the UN body was yet to respond.

“India had pointed out the inconsistencies in the criteria and assumption used by WHO to classify Countries into Tier I and II as well as questioned the very basis for placing India into Tier II countries (for which a mathematical modelling estimate is used). India had also underlined the fact that given the accuracy of the Mortality Data collected through an effective and robust statutory system, India doesn’t deserve to be placed in Tier II countries. WHO till date has not responded to India’s contention.”

“India has consistently questioned WHO’s own admission that data in respect of seventeen Indian states was obtained from some websites and media reports and was used in their mathematical model. This reflects a statistically unsound and scientifically questionable methodology of data collection for making excess mortality projections in case of India,” it further said.

Questioning the “one-size-fits-all” approach to the modelling, India said: “Owing to its large area, diversity and a population of 1.3 billion which witnessed variable severity of the pandemic both across space and time, India consistently objected to the use of “one size fits all”, approach and model… India’s request to use the available data from authentic Indian source was not considered.”

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