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South African hospitals likely did not report the number of Covid-19 patients and the death toll from the virus is likely much higher than the official figure, according to one study.
Up to 2.8 million people out of a population of 59 million may have had the virus, and nearly all of the country’s 62,056 excess deaths since the beginning of the year were likely caused by the pathogen, Alex van den Heever, president of Social Security Studies of administration and systems management at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, it said in a document this month.
His research used data up to October 24. As of that date, the Ministry of Health had confirmed 658,171 infections and 15,907 deaths.
Other researchers using a different methodology have found a lower figure for excess natural deaths, or the number of people who died this year above a historical average.
They also attribute some deaths to lack of access to medical facilities and treatment, as South Africa imposed movement restrictions. Van den Heever disagrees. The spikes in new infections closely resemble spikes in the number of excessive deaths, he said.
“The correlation is too close for collateral deaths,” he said in an interview Monday. “There is a great possibility that they are directly linked to Covid-19. For me, it would be the most likely conclusion, unless other evidence is presented. “
Most of the cases
South Africa has the highest number of confirmed cases on the continent and the highest number of deaths from Covid-19, according to official figures.
It has carried out more than 5.1 million tests, many times more than any other country in Africa. Its official death toll, currently over 20,000, is the fourteenth highest in the world. Iran, which has a similar number of infections, has a death toll of around 42,000.
“We think you are overstating the number of excess deaths,” said Debbie Bradshaw, chief scientist for the South African Medical Research Council and co-author of the council’s weekly report of excess deaths.
Still, “we agree with your interpretation that the temporal trend in the provinces suggests that the majority of deaths would be related to Covid,” he said.
The Bradshaw report estimates that there have been around 50,000 excess deaths.
“No one can say for sure which ones are due to Covid,” said Lwazi Manzi, spokesman for South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize. “We are trying to collect all the information” to make a more accurate assessment, he said.
A final evaluation could take “many years,” according to the SAMRC.
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