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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Audit raises Kerala’s Covid-19 mortality rate: Health experts -GS Mudur and KM Rakesh

Audit raises Kerala’s Covid-19 mortality rate: Health experts -GS Mudur and KM Rakesh

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published Published on Jan 25, 2022   modified Modified on Jan 25, 2022

-The Telegraph

The state’s expert advisers assert that the earlier lower counts were not deliberate but the outcome of a lack of clear definition of Covid-19 deaths

Bangalore: A paradoxical rise in Kerala’s Covid-19 mortality rate despite a shrinking epidemic ahead of omicron’s emergence reflects diligent death auditing under political pressure, public demand and good record-keeping lacking in other states, health experts have said.

The auditing efforts had till Monday added over 16,900 “extra deaths” to Kerala’s Covid-19 toll, raising its case fatality rate (CFR) from 0.6 per cent in August last year to 0.9 per cent at present — lower yet closer to the national average of 1.3 per cent.

Kerala’s auditing exercise and its outcomes make the lack of similar large-scale efforts in other states both conspicuous and puzzling against the backdrop of multiple studies suggesting India has vastly undercounted its Covid-19 deaths.

But health experts believe a mix of strong Opposition pressure, public sensitivity, and efficient health record-keeping has nudged Kerala into re-examining health records to make up for undercounting of deaths with greater efficiency than other states.

The CFR — the proportion of deaths among those diagnosed as positive — at various times during the pandemic has been 1.3 per cent in Karnataka, 1.6 per cent in Gujarat, 2.5 per cent in Maharashtra, and above 3 per cent in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

But Kerala’s CFR has always remained below 0.6 per cent, among the lowest in the country, until the auditing exercise began to release counts of extra deaths near daily since October 22 last year.

“The state government initially tried to manipulate counts for political gains,” said S.S. Lal, a doctor and public health expert and member of the Congress who had contested the 2021 Assembly elections from Kazhakkoottam, a constituency near Thiruvananthapuram.

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The Telegraph, 25 January, 2022, https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/audit-raises-keralas-covid-19-mortality-rate-health-experts/cid/1849026


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