The World Health Organisation (WHO) has put the number of Covid-19 deaths in India at around 4.7 million, which the highest in the world. The deaths, according to the report released on Thursday, could be directly due to the disease or indirectly caused by the pandemic’s impact on health systems and society. India’s Covid toll is approximately a third of the global death number, the report said.    

The WHO estimate of Covid deaths in India is 10-times the official count, and the government has strongly rejected the figure and the methodology.  In an official statement, the Union Health Ministry said that India had been consistently objecting to the methodology adopted by WHO to project excess mortality estimates based on mathematical models. “Despite India’s objection to the process, methodology and outcome of this modelling exercise, WHO has released the excess mortality estimates without adequately addressing India’s concerns,” the Health Ministry said.

India’s official Covid death toll is 481,486 between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021.

The WHO report pegs Covid deaths in India at precisely 47,40,894 during 2020 and 2021. The coinciding pandemic death figure (described as excess mortality) globally is approximately 14.9 million—ranging between 13.3 million and 16.6 million.    

Excess mortality is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years.

The WHO has also released the methodology followed by it to arrive at these numbers. It said: “We consider the most complex sub-national scenario in which the number of regions with monthly data varies by month, using India as an example. For India, we use a variety of sources for the registered number of deaths at the state and union territory level. The information was either reported directly by the states through official reports and automatic vital registration, or by journalists who obtained death registration information through Right To Information requests.”