Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday expressed India’s dismay and concern over a recent report by the World Health Organization, which shows all-cause excess mortality estimates with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mandaviya said authentic data published by the statutory authority had not been taken into account by the global health body. According to the report, there were 4.7 million coronavirus-related deaths in India — 10 times the official figure and almost a third of Covid deaths globally.
“India would like to express its disappointment over the manner in which the report by WHO on all-cause mortality was prepared and published ignoring the concerns expressed by India and other countries over the methodology and sources of data, setting aside the country specific authentic data from the statutory authority of India,” Mandaviya said in his address at the 75th session of the World Health Assembly at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
In a report released on May 5, the WHO estimated that nearly 15 million people were killed globally either by the coronavirus or by its impact on overwhelmed health systems in the last two years. This figure is more than double the official death toll of six million. The report stated that most of the fatalities were in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Mandaviya said the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare were collectively disappointed with the report. The representative body of health ministers from all states of India had passed a unanimous resolution regarding the approach and methodology of the WHO on its excess mortality report.
The health minister further said India was committed to build a more resilient global health security architecture. “As highlighted by India’s Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), there is a need to build a resilient global supply chain to enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines, streamlining WHO’s approval process for vaccines and therapeutics and strengthen WHO to build a more resilient global health security architecture,” he added.
Mandaviya also said India was ready to play a key role as a responsible member of the global community. “India believes that this year’s theme linking peace and health, is timely and pertinent because there can be no sustainable development and universal health and wellbeing without peace,” he said.
(With PTI inputs)
Read all the Latest India News here
Comments
0 comment