"Without epidemiological evidence": India refutes report alleging 7 times more Covid deaths

India on Saturday refuted a report published by The Economist, which states that the actual number of Covid deaths in the country could be 5-7 times higher than the official number, alleging that it is based on extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence.

"The unsound analysis of the said article is based on the extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence," the Union Health Ministry slammed without naming the publication. Moreover, they alleged that the studies used by the magazine to estimate mortality are not validated tools for determining the death rate of any country/region.

The statement also reiterated that the government has been transparent in Covid data management, and the Indian Council of Medical Research issued guidelines back in May 2020 to avoid any inconsistency. Furthermore, the ICD-10 codes recommended by the World Health Organisation was followed for correct recording of all deaths.

The ministry, in its statement, listed multiple reasons as to why the study cannot be trusted. Neither has the magazine provided the detailed methodology adopted, nor has the study been located in scientific databases like Pubmed or Research Gate, it claimed.

"Another evidence given is the study done in Telangana based on insurance claims. Again, there is no peer-reviewed scientific data available on such a study," the statement said.

"Two other studies relied upon are those done by Psephology groups namely "Prashnam" and "C-Voter" who are well versed in conducting, predicting and analyzing poll results. They were never ever associated with public health research. Even in their own area of work of psephology, their methodologies for predicting poll results have been wide off the mark many times," it said. The statement also alleged that the magazine itself submitted that "the estimate have been extrapolated from patchy and often unreliable local government data, from company records and from analyses of such things as obituaries".

Furthermore, the health ministry urged states and union territories through multiple communications for correctly recording deaths as per guidelines, and emphasized the need for a robust reporting mechanism for district wise cases and deaths daily, said the statement.

"States consistently reporting lower number of daily deaths were told to re-check their data. A case in point is the Union Government writing to the State of Bihar to provide detailed date and district-wise break-up of the reconciled number of deaths to Union Health Ministry," it said.

It further added that there will always be differences in mortality recorded during a public health crisis, such as the pandemic, and well-conducted research studies on excess mortalities conducted afterwards when more data is available from reliable sources.

However, the methodologies for such studies are well established, the data sources are defined as also the valid assumptions for computing mortality, the statement said.