Center denies allegations of underestimation of covid-19 deaths

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Refuting allegations of underestimation of covid-19 deaths, the central government said on Thursday that given India’s robust and law-based death registration system, deaths are unlikely to be missed, although some cases of coronavirus may go undetected.

Ending misleading reports “that the presumed excessive death toll in India during the pandemic could run into the millions, calling the official covid-19 death toll grossly underestimated, the government said extrapolating deaths was made on a bold assumption that the probability of everything given that an infected person dies is the same in all countries, ruling out the interplay between various direct and indirect factors such as race, ethnicity, constitution genomics of a population, previous exposure levels to other diseases and the associated immunity developed in that population.

The reports cited the results of some recent studies, infection death rates by age of American and European countries were used to calculate excess deaths in India on the basis of HIV status.

The government explained that seroprevalence studies are not only used to guide strategy and measures to further prevent the spread of infection to the vulnerable population, but are also used as another basis for extrapolating deaths. The studies also have another potential concern that antibody titers may decrease over time, leading to an underestimation of the true prevalence and a corresponding overestimation of the death rate from infection.

Additionally, reports assume that all excess mortality figures are deaths from COVID, which is not factual and totally misleading. Excess mortality is a term used to describe an all-cause mortality figure and to attribute these deaths to covid-19 is completely misleading, ”the government said.

India has a thorough contact tracing strategy. All primary contacts, whether symptomatic or asymptomatic, are tested for covid-19. The real cases detected are those which are positive with RT PCR, which is the gold standard for the covid-19 test, “the union’s health ministry said in a statement.

In addition to contacts, given the wide availability of over 2,700 testing labs in the country, anyone wishing to get tested can do so. This, coupled with a broad IEC on symptoms and access to medical care, allowed people to go to hospitals when needed, ”he said.

The government has said that while some cases may go undetected in accordance with the principles of infectious diseases and their management, deaths are unlikely to have been missed. This is also seen in the case fatality rate which as of December 31, 2020 stood at 1.45% and even after an unexpected surge seen in the second wave in April-May 2021, the case fatality rate is now rising. ‘hui at 1.34. %, “the government said.

In addition, the daily notification of new cases and deaths in India follows a bottom-up approach, where districts report the number of cases and deaths to state governments and the Union Ministry on an ongoing basis, the government explained.

As early as May 2020, to avoid any inconsistency or confusion in the number of reported deaths, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) issued guidelines for the proper registration of COVID-19-related deaths in India for proper registration of all states / UT deaths according to WHO recommended ICD-10 codes for coding mortality.

In his statement to Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, refuted allegations of cover-up of Covid-19 deaths and said the central government does not compile and publish as data sent by state governments.

The Union Ministry of Health has repeatedly advised States and UTs through formal communications, multiple videoconferences and through the deployment of central teams for the registration of deaths in accordance with established guidelines. The Ministry of Health has also regularly stressed the need for a strong reporting mechanism to monitor cases and deaths in the districts on a daily basis. States have been urged to conduct in-depth audits at their hospitals and report any cases or deaths that may have been missed with a district and details by date to guide data-driven decision making. At the height of Wave 2, the entire healthcare system focused on effective clinical management of cases requiring medical assistance, and correct notification and registration could have been compromised, which is also evident in a few states such as Maharashtra, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh. their number of deaths recently.

In addition to these reports, the robustness of the law-based civil registration system (CRS) ensures that all births and deaths in the country are registered. CRS goes through the process of collecting data, cleaning up, compiling and releasing the numbers, which, while lengthy, takes time, but ensures that no deaths are overlooked. For the extent and magnitude of the activity, the figures are usually released the following year.

India has reported 41,383 new cases in the past 24 hours with a currently active caseload of 4,09,394. About 510 deaths have been reported due to the highly infectious disease. The total tally of covid-19 cases is 3.12 crore and people over 4.19 lakh have officially died from covid-19.

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