Some Cases Could Go Undetected, but Missing Out on COVID Deaths Unlikely: Govt

The Centre further observed that the process of reconciling of death numbers is still being carried out.

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare stated that missing out on deaths while reporting the cases was highly unlikely. Image used for representational purposes. 

(Photo: PTI)

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday, 4 August, stated that while some COVID-19 cases may have gone undetected as per the principles of infectious disease and its management, missing out on the number of deaths while reporting the cases was highly unlikely.

"It is clarified that given the robust and statute-based Death Registration System in India, while some cases could go undetected as per the principles of infectious disease and its management, missing out on deaths is completely unlikely. This could also be seen in the case fatality rate, which as on 31 December 2020 stood at 1.45% and even after an unexpected surge observed in the second wave in April-May 2021, the case fatality rate today stands at 1.34%," the Centre said in a press release.

The Centre's Statement

Countering media speculations about the underreporting of COVID-19 deaths, the ministry noted that the reporting of daily new cases and deaths in India follow a bottom-up approach, wherein districts report the number of COVID cases and deaths to the state governments and to the Union ministry on a continuous basis.

The press release issued by the Health Ministry also observed that in order to avoid inconsistency in the number of deaths reported, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in May 2020 had laid down the guidelines for the recording of COVID-19-related deaths in India. The guidelines are based on the ICD-10 codes for mortality coding recommended by the WHO.

"Union Health Ministry has been repeatedly advising states and UTs through formal communications, multiple video conferences, and through deployment of central teams for recording of deaths in accordance with the laid down guidelines. States have been advised to conduct thorough audits in their hospitals and report any cases or deaths that could have been missed with a district and date-wise detail so as to guide a data-driven decision making."

The Centre's Statement

In addition to reporting by states/UTs, the robustness of statute-based Civil Registration System (CRS) ensures all births and deaths in the country get registered, the Centre maintained.

The CRS follows a process of data collection, cleaning, collating, and publishing the numbers, which ensures no deaths are missed out, the statement said. Because of the expanse and the amplitude of the activity, the numbers are usually published the next year, it added.

"During the peak of the second wave, the health system across the country was focused on effective clinical management of cases requiring medical help due to which correct reporting and recording of COVID deaths could have been delayed but later was reconciled by the states/UTs," the government stated.

The Centre further observed that the reconciling of deaths is still being carried out.

On 22 July as well, the Union government had refuted recent media reports, which alleged that the country's COVID-19 death count was 'vastly undercounted' and said that such reports 'assume that all the excess mortality figures are COVID deaths, which is not based on facts and totally fallacious'.

The health ministry said that the news reports in question quoted findings from some recent studies and also used US and European countries’ age-specific infection fatality rates to calculate excess deaths in India based on the sero-positivity.