COVID-19 deaths in India five million not 500,000?
Patanjali’s Coronil claimed to be an “immune booster.”
April 22, 2022
There have been at least four million deaths from COVID-19 in India, making it the country with the highest number of deaths in the world, according to a yet to be released study by the World Health Organization (WHO), The New York Times reported this week. So far, the release has been blocked by India, the report added.
Through a series of formal communications and virtual meetings with WHO, India – along with China, Iran, Bangladesh, Syria, Ethiopia and Egypt – raised questions “regarding the methodology, and use of unofficial sets of data,” on which the WHO’s report is based. This was stated in a post, in response to the New York Times report, by India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
In January this year, Science, the reputed international journal, published the results of a study which estimated the number of COVID-19 deaths in India to be similar to WHO’s figures. The study was led by Prabhat Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research, University of Toronto, Canada. Including Jha, five of the eleven researchers involved in the study were Indians or of Indian origin, namely Yashwant Deshmukh, Chinmay Tumbe, Aditi Bhowmick, and Sankalp Sharma
In addition, Rukmini S, S. Ramani, V. Radhakhrishnan, A. Saikia, M. Alavi, S. Das, P. Vardhan, and D. Rajendran, were crucial in filing petitions in India to access the various data sources. The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Government of Canada's health research investment agency.
India Health Ministry’s post added that it has “repeatedly highlighted that India has a robust system of data collection and management.” However, Jha’s team did not find much robust data. In fact, the study published in Science noted that “Of India’s 10 million deaths (from all causes) estimated by the United Nations Population Division in 2020, over 3 million were not registered and over 8 million did not undergo medical certification.”
In February, the Indian government wrote to the United Nations Statistical Commission that WHO’s Indian COVID-19 mortality results “do not hold scientific rigor and rational scrutiny as expected from an organization” of its stature.
In June 2020, Patanjali Ayurveda, based in Haridwar, India, claimed that Coronil - a combination of traditional Indian herbs with “Powerful Minerals” - could cure COVID 19. There is no scientific data that backs the claim. Yet the government of India ruled that while it could not be marketed as a COVID cure, the herbal mix could be sold as an “Immunity Booster.”
A Coronil kit, of about 120 grams, sells for $4.50. Patanjali, part of a multi-billion-dollar consumer goods empire, founded by Baba Ramdev and Acharya Balkrishna, also sells herbal medicines to “cure” most ailments, including headaches, arthritis, asthma and high cholesterol. Some of Patanjali’s products are sold on Amazon. Balkrishna, 49-years-old, is Patanjali’s managing director, with a net worth of $2.1 billion, according to Forbes.
Jha, a member of the WHO’s COVID-19 mortality calculation expert working group, told The New York Times that “understanding the death total is key to knowing if vaccination campaigns are working… And it’s important for accountability.”
Update May 5, 2022: COVID-19 deaths in India 4.7 million, not 481,000
During 2020 and 2021, 4.7 million Indians died from COVID-19, roughly ten times higher than the official numbers, according to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO) released today. Overall, across the globe, about 14.9 million died from the virus, three times higher than the official count.
The WHO group, which published the data, wass co-chaired by Debbie Bradshaw, Chief Specialist Scientist, South African Medical Research Council, Kevin McCormack, Head of Division for Sustainable Development Goals Indicators, Irish Central Statistics Office, and Oleg Chestnov, Fellow, Federal Research Institute for Health Organization, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.
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