India has a very robust system of birth & death reporting, the health ministry said

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has dismissed as "baseless" and "speculative" reports claiming that Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) paid more in death claims in six months during the deadly second wave of the Covid-19 than in an entire year pre-pandemic.

A speculative and biased interpretation has been made to reveal that the Covid -19 related mortalities could be more than those recorded officially, the ministry said on Saturday.

Rejecting these reports, the health ministry came out with a detailed statement explaining India’s transparent and efficient system of reporting COVID-19 deaths.

“While claims settled by LIC relate to Life insurance policies taken by policy holders for deaths due to all causes, but the news reports conclude that this would imply Covid deaths were underreported.

The authors perhaps are not aware how the Covid-19 deaths in India are collated and published daily in public domain since the beginning of pandemic,” the ministry pointed out.

Describing India’s nation-wide Covid-19 vaccination drive as the largest such drive globally, the health ministry said it is supported with a strong technology backup and has performed exceptionally in the last more than two years of the Covid vaccination drive.

India has a very robust system of birth & death reporting which is based on a statute and is carried out regularly from the Gram Panchayat level to the District level and State level. The whole exercise is carried out under the overall oversight of the Registrar General of India (RGI).

"Moreover, Government of India has a very comprehensive definition to classify COVID deaths, based on globally acceptable categorisation. All deaths are being independently reported by States, and are being compiled centrally," the ministry noted.

According to the ministry, the Government of India has time and again exhorted States to periodically update their mortality figures as this exercise would accentuate the efforts of Public Health response to Covid-19 by giving a true picture of the pandemic.

In addition to this, the ministry pointed out, it must be noted that there is an added incentive in India to report COVID deaths as it entitles one to monetary compensation which further makes the likelihood of underreporting scarce.

Since the start of the pandemic, the Union Government is committed to provide a Transparent and Accountable Public Health response under the Whole of Society and the whole of Government approach.

Transparent reporting of deaths due to Covid-19 is one of the main pillars of the graded approach to Covid-19 management in India and the Union Health Ministry has also regularly emphasized the need for a robust reporting mechanism for monitoring district wise cases and deaths on a daily basis.

In this endeavor, the Union Government from time to time has been issuing guidelines on various aspects of Covid management. In addition to this, all States and UTs were engaged through multiple platforms, formal communications, video conferences and through deployment of Central teams for correct recording of deaths in accordance with the prescribed guidelines.

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has also issued ‘Guidance for appropriate recording of COVID-19 related deaths in India’ for correct recording of all deaths as per ICD-10 codes recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO), the health ministry added.

Hence, the likelihood of underreporting is less. During a disruptive situation like the pandemic, the actual mortality could be more than the reported deaths due to many factors, even in the most robust health systems. However, any analysis with the view to deduce information collected from extremely varied caseload and outcome situations among Indian states is bound to be incomplete and incorrect.

Further, India has a robust Civil Registration System (CRS) and Sample Registration System (SRS) which was in place even before the COVID-19 pandemic and covers all States/UTs.

The ministry also highlighted that the registration of deaths in the country has a legal backing. The registration is done under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act (RBD Act, 1969) by functionaries appointed by the State Governments.

"Thus, data generated through CRS has utmost credibility and should be used rather than depending on unauthenticated data," the ministry argued.