Pakistan rejects WHO report, says ‘carefully’ reported COVID-19 deaths

KARACHI: Pakistani Health Minister Abdul Qadir Patel on Friday rejected a World Health Organization (WHO) report on coronavirus deaths across the world, saying Pakistan had reported the fatalities “carefully” and “any margin of error cannot be more than 10,000.” 
The WHO on Thursday said that nearly 15 million more people had died during the pandemic than that would have in normal days, suggesting figures were massively “underreported” in many countries. Twenty countries, representing approximately 50 percent of the global population, account for over 80 percent of the estimated global excess mortality from January 2020 to December 2021, according to the United Nations (UN) health body. 
Pakistan was one of 20 countries, where the WHO noted the mortality rate was 8 times high. Others that underreported figures included Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom (UK), Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States (US). 
“The WHO’s figures are incomprehensible, given the fact that we have carefully, systematically and manually compiled our COVID-19 data,” Patel told Arab News.  
He said the official death toll from coronavirus in Pakistan was 30,369, while the WHO report claimed around 260,000 people had died of the infection.  
“If we consider a margin of error, there should be a maximum difference of 10,000 deaths, this 260,000 is a huge difference, which is totally incomprehensible,” the health minister said.  
The figures, he argued, were thoroughly verified and were compiled with data from hospitals, neighborhoods as well as graveyards, where the deaths are recorded with specific details of date, time and location.   
“There was a proper system of reporting. There should not be such a huge difference, also because we haven’t witnessed any extraordinary increase in deaths during pandemic,” Patel said. “Instead, it’s believed that many deaths caused by other health problems were counted as COVID-related fatality.” 
A handout by the Pakistani health ministry said the COVID-19 data in Pakistan was properly audited by comparing numbers from hospitals and local health officials and practitioners with the data from the graveyards.  
“The figures compiled on the basis of hypothesis can be misleading,” the handout said of the WHO report.  
The WHO said the excess mortality rate was calculated based on the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred during the pandemic and the number that was expected in its absence, based on the data from previous years. 
“Excess mortality includes deaths associated with COVID-19 directly (due to the disease) or indirectly (due to the pandemic’s impact on health systems and society). Deaths linked indirectly to COVID-19 are attributable to other health conditions for which people were unable to access prevention and treatment because health systems were overburdened by the pandemic,” the WHO said in its report. 
“The estimated number of excess deaths can be influenced also by deaths averted during the pandemic due to lower risks of certain events, like motor-vehicle accidents or occupational injuries.” 
Most of the excess deaths (84 percent), the WHO said, were concentrated in South-East Asia, Europe, and the Americas. 
“Some 68 percent of excess deaths are concentrated in just 10 countries globally. Middle-income countries account for 81 percent of the 14.9 million excess deaths (53 percent in lower-middle-income countries and 28 percent in upper-middle-income countries) over the 24-month period, with high-income and low-income countries each accounting for 15 percent and 4 percent, respectively,” it reads. 
Separately, Patel reporters at the Karachi Press Club his government had decided to continue the Sehat Sahulat Program, a health initiative taken by the former government of prime minister Imran Khan. The minister, however, said the incumbent government would make changes to the program so that only needy and deserving people could benefit from it.  
“We believe that both poor and rich people are taking benefit from the Health Cards, a program that is run through the money collected from the poor,” the minister said. 
“We will make changes and also launch it in Sindh, but haven’t halted it immediately as we believe that no one should suffer.”