The Centre, States and health experts were on the same page on Thursday in trashing the WHO report estimating 4.7 million (47 lakh) Covid-related fatalities in India as baseless and devoid of facts.
The WHO report released on Wednesday has 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.
Sources said that at the three-day conference of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare, an apex advisory body of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), beginning here on Thursday, took exception to the report. The meeting is being chaired by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya. Around 20 Health Ministers and representatives of some States are attending it.
In the meantime, top health experts, including ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava, NITI Aayog Member (Health) VK Paul, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria and NTAGI’s Covid-19 Working Group Chairman Dr NK Arora too rejected the WHO report as “untenable and unfortunate”.
Dr VK Paul said India has been telling WHO with all “humility” through diplomatic channels along with data and rational reasoning that it does not agree with the methodology that has been followed for the country.
They have used a methodology for several nations which is based on a systematic collection of data on deaths.
“We have a similar system, a robust Civil Registration System (CRS). We released that report yesterday (Wednesday) and we have an actual count of deaths for 2020... The 2021 numbers will also come up,” he said.
The Civil Registration System of India provides accurate estimates emanating from the ground, certified and validated by the district and the State administration.
“We want them to have used these numbers. Unfortunately, despite our emphatic writing and communication at the ministerial level, they have chosen to use the numbers that are based on modelling and assumptions,” Paul said.
“Modelling is a one-size-fits-all kind of assumption and you may apply it where the systems are poor. But to apply assumptions based on a subset of states and on reports that come from websites and media, and then you come out with an exorbitant number is not tenable. We are disappointed with what WHO has done,” he said.
Dr Arora described the WHO report as very unfortunate.
“India has performed unexpectedly well in Covid-19 management. In fact, many prestigious journals in the world had predicted doom for India,” he said.
“They thought India will just collapse both as a nation as well as an economy and as a health system. But it never happened because we as a country came together and managed it very well.”
Dr Arora said India’s mortality per million is among the lowest compared to many advanced nations.
“I think people should now learn how to digest that they can learn even from India how to manage pandemics... I think the time has come that we should be more confident in ourselves and the way we are doing it. In fact, the world has a lot to learn from us,” he said.
Dr Balram Bhargava said there was no definition of Covid deaths. “Even WHO did not have any definition for death... So, we looked at all the data that we had and we concluded that 95 per cent of the deaths that occurred after testing positive for COVID-19 were occurring in the first four weeks. So a 30-day cut-off was given for the definition of death,” he said.
Dr Randeep Guleria also raised objections to the WHO report. “I’ll give three broad reasons for that. One is that India has a very robust system of birth and death registration and that data are available. WHO has not used that data. Another issue is that India has been very liberal in offering compensation to people who have died from COVID-19 and that has been there in a very open manner, Dr Guleria said.
“So, even if there were excess Covid-related deaths, they would have been recorded because people would have come forward for compensation,” he added.