New Delhi (AP) – When Narayan Mitra died on July 16, a day after he was admitted to hospital for fever and shortness of breath, his name never appeared in the daily official list of people killed by the coronavirus.
Exam results later revealed that Mitra was actually infected with Kovid-1, while his son Abhijit and four other members of his family were in Silchar in the northeastern state of Assam, on the Bangladesh border.
But Narayan Mitra is still not considered a coronavirus sufferer. The virus was considered a “contingency” factor, and a panel of doctors determined that his death was due to a previously diagnosed neurological disorder that causes muscle weakness.
Regarding the discovery, Abhijeet Mitra said that despite the national guidelines, states are being told not to blame deaths in internal situations, as confirmed by Kovid-1 by. Tests.
Such exclusions may explain why there are about 83,000,000 people in India, a country of 1.3 billion people, after the United States, which has more than 1.1 million infections.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a strict lockdown of the entire population earlier this year, the Indian Ministry of Health cited this as evidence of its success in fighting the epidemic and as a basis for easing sanctions and reopening the economy.
But experts say the numbers are misleading and India is not counting the number of deaths.
Retired virologist Dr .. T. “We are being killed by an unknown factor,” said Jacob John.
The health ministry has dropped allegations of low crime counts in the past, but declined to comment this week on whether all suspected and virus deaths are being confirmed in the states.
It is difficult to determine the exact numbers during an epidemic: countries calculate cases and deaths differently, and testing for the virus is unequal, making comparisons misleading.
In India, it was poor to record mortality data even before the epidemic broke out. Of the estimated 10 million deaths each year, less than a quarter are fully documented, and according to national statistics, only one-fifth of these are medically certified.
Most Indians die at home, not in a hospital, and doctors are usually not present to record the cause of death. This is more prevalent in rural areas, where the virus has now spread.
Dr Prabhat Zai, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto who studies deaths in India, said countries should look at death issues if they want to make progress in fighting the virus.
“It’s better not to have an estimate than to have a low estimate,” Zhao said.
This guideline from the Ministry of Health echoes this concern, stating that it is asked to record all suspected virus deaths, including “suspected deaths” – who may have died from Covid-19, but have not been tested for it. Was.
But that guideline is advisory and many states do not follow it. In Maharashtra, the worst-affected state with more than 1 million cases, no suspected deaths have been reported in the state, said Dr Archana Patil, director of state health.
Other states like Assam have also formed panels of doctors who differentiate from “real virus deaths” and underlying diseases. In some cities, such as New Delhi or Mumbai, these panels have occasionally increased the number of missing deaths.
But the head of the Assam panel, Dr. Anup Kumar Burman said the state does not include many casualties where the virus was not the cause of death, but the ‘virus was accidental’. In the case of Narayan Mitra, he had more symptoms of an underlying neurological disorder, Burman said.
Burman added that the state of Assam was complying with federal guidelines and was only giving the cause of death in deaths due to respiratory failure, pneumonia or blood clots. But the guide lists these factors as examples of how the virus can kill and not a restricted checklist. Burman declined to answer any follow-up questions from the Associated Press.
More than 147,000 infections have been reported in the state of Assam but less than 500 people have died as of Wednesday.
In the state of West Bengal, a similar panel was approached in May and the state said it would follow federal guidelines later. Of the 105 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in April, the panel found that 72 or about 70% were not caused by the virus.
P.V. Ramesh, who led Covid-1 management for the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India until July, said he had not died of coronavirus at home, in transit or on arrival at hospitals.
Data gaps also mean that India’s ability to identify spikes in deaths caused by natural causes over the years has been spot on. Problems with the calculation of deaths in countries like South Africa have also caused concern.
Meanwhile, the court has criticized the transparency of the distribution of casualty data in some states like Telangana.
In addition, in May the guidelines of the Federal Ministry of Health advised hospitals against conducting autopsies in suspected COVID-19 cases to prevent infection with the virus. Although the guidelines say certification can be done by doctors, experts say this is also leading to untimely deaths.
Researchers on public health and ethics. “Despite the growing number of infections, the government’s emphasis on low mortality has led people to believe that the virus is not necessarily fatal, leading to a ‘false sense of protection,'” Anant Bhan said. In the city of Bhopal. People wearing masks or not being careful to maintain social distance have put down their guards, Bhan said.
The director of a hospital in rural Wardha district of Maharashtra, Dr. S.P. Regional officials also felt pressured to die to show that the health crisis was under control, Kalantri said. He said there were subtle signs of “bringing down the number” by district officials by listing some of the deaths caused by internal diseases.
Maharashtra state health director Archana Patil said at first some districts had the problem, but then officials have been advised to report all deaths.
Cemetery workers, meanwhile, have reported an increase in corpses – whether it’s from the virus or not.
Bhupesh Soni, a worker at a cemetery in Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, said 30 people were buried every day before the epidemic, compared to five or six.
Funerals usually take about 45 minutes, but Sony said there have been days when he has worked for more than 20 hours.
“It’s an infinite flow of the body,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Biswajit Banerjee in Lucknow, India and Inderjit Singh in Patna, India contributed.
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The Associated Press The Department of Health and Science is supported by the Department of Science Education at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is fully responsible for all content.
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