New Delhi: India has objected to the methodology used by the World Health Organization (WHO) for estimating about 4 million Covid-19 related deaths in the country.
The Ministry of health said in a statement that It is very surprising that while New York Times purportedly could obtain the alleged figures of excess COVID19 mortality in respect to India, it was “unable to learn the estimates for other countries”.
India has shared its concerns with the methodology along with other Member States through a series of formal communications including six letters issued to WHO (on 17th November, 20th December 2021, 28thDecember 2021, 11th January 2022, 12thFebruary 2022 and 2nd March 2022) and virtual meetings held on 16th December 2021, 28th December 2021, 6th January 2022, 25th February 2022 and the SEARO Regional Webinar held on 10th February 2022. During these exchanges, specific queries have been raised by India along with other Member States e.g. China, Iran, Bangladesh, Syria, Ethiopia and Egypt regarding the methodology, and use of unofficial sets of data.
The concern specifically includes on how the statistical model projects estimates for a country of geographical size & population of India and also fits in with other countries which have smaller population. Such one size fit all approach and models which are true for smaller countries like Tunisia may not be applicable to India with a population of 1.3 billion. WHO is yet to share the confidence interval for the present statistical model across various countries.
The model gives two highly different sets of excess mortality estimates of when using the data from Tier I countries and when using unverified data from 18 Indian States. Such wide variation in estimates raises concerns about validity and accuracy of such a modelling exercise.
India has asserted that if the model accurate and reliable, it should be authenticated by running it for all Tier I countries and if result of such exercise may be shared with all Member States.
While India has expressed above and such similar concerns with WHO but a satisfactory response is yet to be received from WHO.
During interactions with WHO, it has also been highlighted that some fluctuations in official reporting of COVID-19 data from some of the Tier I countries including USA, Germany, France etc. defied knowledge of disease epidemiology. Further inclusion of a country like Iraq which is undergoing an extended complex emergency under Tier I countries raises doubts on WHO’s assessment in categorization of countries as Tier I/II and its assertion on quality of mortality reporting from these countries.
While India has remained open to collaborate with WHO as data sets like these will be helpful from the policy making point of view, India believes that in-depth clarity on methodology and clear proof of its validity are crucial for policy makers to feel confident about any use of such data.