Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: The Indian government has refuted claims made by a study led by Indian-origin researchers from Oxford University, published in the US-based journal Science Advances, which suggested that India experienced a significantly higher number of deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic than officially reported. The study claimed that India saw 1.19 million more deaths in 2020 compared to the previous year, a figure eight times higher than the official Covid death count and 1.5 times higher than the World Health Organization’s estimates.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) dismissed these findings as a “gross and misleading overestimate,” citing significant methodological flaws in the study. According to the ministry, the study’s estimates are “untenable and unacceptable.”
The MoHFW presented data from the Civil Registration System (CRS), which it described as “highly robust,” showing an increase of 4.74 lakh deaths in 2020 compared to 2019. This increase, the ministry argued, is consistent with trends seen in previous years, with 4.86 lakh and 6.90 lakh increases in death registrations in 2018 and 2019, respectively. The ministry emphasized that not all excess deaths can be attributed to the pandemic and may include mortality from various causes.
Additionally, the ministry highlighted that the CRS’s increasing trend in death registration (92% in 2019) and a larger population base in subsequent years contributed to the reported increase. India recorded approximately 5.3 lakh deaths due to Covid-19, according to official figures.
The MoHFW criticized the study’s methodology, noting that it relied on data from only 23% of households across 14 states, surveyed between January and April 2021, as part of the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5). The ministry argued that this sample size is not representative of the entire country, making the estimates erroneous.
Citing data from India’s Sample Registration System (SRS), which covers about 84 lakh people in 24 lakh households across 8,842 sample units in 36 states and union territories, the ministry asserted that India had “very little, if any, excess mortality in 2020 compared with 2019 data.” The crude death rate remained constant at 6.0 per 1,000 in both years, with no reduction in life expectancy.
Contrary to the study’s claims of higher female mortality, the MoHFW pointed to consistent research data from cohorts and registries indicating higher Covid-19 mortality rates among males than females (2:1) and significantly higher mortality in older age groups compared to children.
