India rejects WHO`s Covid-19 mortality figures, says its `data collection questionable`

As per WHO estimates, 14.9 million fatalities occurred globally associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, out of which India had 4.7 million deaths.

New Delhi: India on Thursday (May 5) rejected the World Health Organization (WHO)’s data estimating 4.7 million fatalities occurred in the country due to Covid-19 directly or due to the pandemic's impact on health systems and society. 

As per the global health agency, 14.9 million fatalities happened globally, out of which India had 4.7 million deaths. As per new estimates from WHO, the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the coronavirus called “excess mortality”, between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021 was approximately 14.9 million, range 13.3 million to 16.6 million, PTI reported. 

India has strongly objected to the use of mathematical models by the WHO for projecting excess mortality estimates due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

"Despite India`s objection to the process, methodology, and outcome of this modelling exercise, the WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India`s concerns. India had also informed the WHO that in view of the availability of authentic data published through Civil Registration System (CRS) by Registrar General of India (RGI), mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India," the Union Health Ministry said. 

For India, the WHO has estimated the cumulative excess deaths associated with the Covid-19 pandemic (mean) at 4,740,894, PTI reported. 

The WHO said, in a technical note for India, “estimates may not be regarded as the national statistics officially produced by India due to differences arising from the data and methods used by WHO.”

India rebuts WHO’s estimates

India said the WHO had admitted that the data for 17 Indian states was obtained from some websites and media reports to use in their mathematical model. "Throughout the process of dialogue, engagement and communication with WHO, WHO has projected different excess mortality figures for India citing multiple models, which itself raises questions on the validity and robustness of the models used," the health ministry said. 

India has discarded the use of Global Health Estimates (GHE) 2019 in one of the models used by WHO for calculating excess mortality estimates. "GHE itself is an estimate. Therefore, a modelling approach which provides mortality estimates on the basis of another estimate, while totally disregarding the actual data available within the country, exhibits lack of academic rigour."

"The test positivity rate another key variable used by the WHO for Covid-19 in India was never uniform throughout the country at any point of time. 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, which may be applicable to smaller countries but cannot be applicable to India."

(With agency inputs)