India objects to model used by WHO to project death numbers
There were 4.7 million Covid deaths in India —10 times the official figures — between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021 and almost a third of Covid deaths globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, releasing new estimates on the death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic.
India has, however, strongly objected to the use of mathematical models by the global health agency for projecting excess mortality estimates linked to the coronavirus pandemic in view of the availability of authentic data, saying that validity and robustness of the models used and methodology of data collection are questionable.
The WHO report claimed more than three times the number of deaths than officially recorded worldwide — a total of approximately 14.9 million fatalities.
“These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general.
The WHO data showed that till August 2020, a period when the country had mostly been under lockdown that began in late March, there were approximately 62,000 fewer deaths. Deaths began to rise from September, coinciding with the first waves in many States. More than half of the excess deaths, at 2.7 million, took place during the peak of the second nationwide wave in the months of April, May and June last year.
Excess mortality, WHO said, is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years.
Most of the excess deaths (84 per cent) are concentrated in South-East Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Some 68 per cent of excess deaths are concentrated in just 10 countries globally, the world health body said.
It also said at least 80 per cent of the total deaths were from 20 countries, including Brazil, India, Pakistan and Germany having 50 per cent of the world population.
Middle-income countries account for 81 per cent of the 14.9 million excess deaths (53 per cent in lower-middle-income countries and 28 per cent in upper-middle-income countries) over the 24-month period, with high-income and low-income countries each accounting for 15 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively.
India which has contested the WHO estimates is likely to raise the issue at the World Health Assembly and required multilateral forums, sources in the Union Health Ministry said.
“Those numbers, which are in sync with India’s stated death toll, are of actual deaths, Niti Aayog’s Dr VK Paul, one of the people in charge of India’s response to Covid-19 said, adding that there’s no need to resort to models to arrive at the death toll when actual numbers are available.
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 modelling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns,” the statement said.
India had also informed the WHO that in view of the availability of authentic data published through Civil Registration System (CRS) by the Registrar General of India (RGI), mathematical models should not be used for projecting excess mortality numbers for India.
Registration of births and deaths in India is extremely robust and is governed by decades old statutory legal framework, i.e. “Births & Deaths Registration Act, 1969”. The civil registration data as well as sample registration data released annually by the RGI has been used by a large number of researchers, policy makers and scientists both domestically and globally, the Ministry said.
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, the statement said.
“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,” the statement said.
Despite communicating this data to WHO for supporting their publication, WHO for reasons best known to them conveniently chose to ignore the available data submitted by India and published the excess mortality estimates for which the methodology, source of data, and the outcomes has been consistently questioned by India,” the statement said.