“WHO’s report of 4.7 million deaths in India preposterous,” Dr. NK Arora, chief of India's Covid Working Group

Chief of India Covid working said that the World Health Organisation’s report of 4.7 million Covid deaths in India does not stand in "logic or fact". He also said the report is “worrisome”.

Speaking to the media, Dr. NK Arora, chief of India's Covid Working Group, said that though there can be a 10-20% discrepancy, India's death registration system, known as Civil Registration System, has ensured that a majority of virus-related deaths were covered.

On Thursday, WHO released a report that said there were 4.7 million Covid-19 deaths in India.

Reacting to the report, NK Arora called it "preposterous and untenable".

 He said, “In 2018, around 85-88 percent of deaths were covered. In 2020, 98-99 percent of the deaths were covered. In 2018 and 2019, seven lakh deaths additional took place. Do we say that all were Covid? Out of the excess 4.6 lakh, 1.45 were the reported deaths. Those three lakh deaths took place due to other reasons. Even if we say 4 lakh deaths were extra, still it does not fit into the WHO estimates".

When questioned if states could have failed to report deaths to the Centre, Mr. Arora answered, "There was lag and you know after the Supreme Court ruling, every state has been reporting their backlog deaths which were missed out earlier, and now they are part of the current system. Many times the numbers in Kerala and other well-performing states, additional deaths have been added up to the overall numbers. India is a huge country, so there will be some missing, but not "10 times" as is being reported".