The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that over 47 lakh people have died due to COVID-19 in India, claimed top medical experts, including Dr VK Paul of NITI Aayog and Dr Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS .
Some of India’s top health experts have questioned the modeling method used by the UN agency, saying it is disappointed with its ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.
Dr Paul, the head of the Centre’s NITI Aayog, slammed the WHO for presenting additional estimates of the death rate related to COVID.
“Unfortunately, despite our vigorous writing, rational communication at the ministerial level, they have chosen to use a number based on modeling assumptions – one size fits all type of assumptions,” he told ANI news agency.
“India is saying WHO With data through diplomatic channels that we do not agree with the methodology to be adopted for us,” he said.
However, the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said, “Once we have this systematic data, we don’t need to rely on modelling, extrapolation and taking press reports and using them in modeling exercises.” is.”
Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS Hospital, Delhi, also opposed the WHO’s approach for counting more deaths. Guleria told ANI news agency, “I have objection and I will give three reasons for that. India has a very strong system of birth and death registration which has been going on for decades. We know it works very well. And this data is available”.
“Second – the data that WHO has used is more on evidence than rumors – what is in the media or unconfirmed sources. That data is questionable. The modeling on that data is not correct,” said the AIIMS director.
Giving the final reason, Dr Guleria said that India has been very generous in offering compensation to people who died of Covid, i.e. in a very open manner.
“Therefore, even if there were extreme deaths that were related to COVID, they would have been recorded because people would have come forward, and their relatives would have come forward for compensation. This is not the case with WHO numbers. Prediction, AIIMS Director said.
According to the WHO statement on Thursday, May 5, more than 47 lakh people died due to Kovid-19 in India from 2020 to 2021, which is almost 10 times the official figure shared by the Union Health Ministry.
the death toll The WHO has said that between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021, there may be about 1.5 crore people directly or indirectly linked to Kovid-19.
This figure is almost three times the official count (5 lakh) of deaths directly due to COVID-19 and was reported to WHO in that period.