“India’s basic objection is not with the outcome (whatever it may be), but the methodology adopted for the same,” Ministry of Health Said, underlining that India is having regular and intensive technical exchanges with WHO on this issue. If the model adopted is accurate and reliable, “it should be validated by running it for all Tier I countries and if the result of such an exercise can be shared with all Member States”.
Comment followed a NYT The report said that India is trying to stifle the WHO report on the global Covid toll by disputing the death count of how many of its citizens. The article said that the report yet to be released concluded that around 15 million people died worldwide by the end of 2021 – more than double the official total of six million reported by countries individually. The report said that more than a third of the additional 9 million deaths are estimated to occur in India, which will then take the number of Covid deaths in the country to at least four million.
However, the NYT said, it was unable to know estimates from other countries.
According to the health ministry, the WHO analysis uses mortality data obtained directly from the Tier-1 set of countries, while for Tier II countries (including India), it uses a mathematical modeling process. In fact, it is not just India, specific questions have been raised about the use of “unofficial data sets” by other WHO member countries such as China, Iran, Bangladesh, Syria, Ethiopia and Egypt, the ministry said.
“It is very surprising that while new York Times While India may have reportedly obtained additional Covid-19 mortality data with respect to India, it was ‘unable to know the estimates of other countries’,” the health ministry said.
The health ministry has strongly criticized the UN body for its methodology, saying the concern specifically includes how statistical model projects estimate India’s geographic size and population for the country and fit with other countries as well. which have a small population. “Such a one-size-fits-all approach and models that hold true for small countries like Tunisia may not apply to India with a population of 1.3 billion. WHO has not yet shared confidence intervals for current statistical models in different countries,” it said.
In addition, the model gives two highly different sets of additional mortality estimates when using data from Tier-I countries and unverified data from 18 Indian states. “Such wide variation in estimates raises concerns about the validity and accuracy of such modeling exercise,” the health ministry said.
India has shared its concerns with other member countries through a series of formal communications, including six letters issued to the WHO between November 17, 2021 and March 2, 2022. The issues were also raised during various virtual meetings in December, January and February.
Questioning the WHO’s approach, the ministry said that the model assumes an inverse relationship between monthly temperature and monthly average deaths, which has no scientific backing to establish such a peculiar empirical relationship. Furthermore, the test positivity rate for COVID-19 in India was not uniform across the country at any point of time, but this change in the COVID-19 positivity rate within India was not considered by WHO for modeling purposes.
“Furthermore, the subjective approach to measuring such measures will always involve a lot of bias, which certainly will not present the real situation. WHO has also agreed about the subjective approach to this measure. However, it is not yet used. are also used,” the ministry said, underlining that it has not yet received a “satisfactory response” from the WHO.
watch WHO used different scales for different countries: India on COVID-19 deaths