At World Health Assembly session, Mandaviya expresses dismay over WHO report on Covid death figure

New Delhi, May 23

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday expressed dismay over the World Health Organisation’s recent report claiming the actual number of people losing their lives in India after getting infected by COVID was ten times more than the official figure.

Covid could have killed as many as 47.4 lakh people in India in 2020 and 2021, either directly or due to infection or through its indirect impact, the WHO said earlier this month.

Addressing the 75th session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva at WHO HQ, Mandaviya raised dismay and concern over WHO’s recent exercise. He said country-specific authentic data published by the statutory authority was not taken into account by the premier world body.

The Union Health Minister conveyed the collective disappointment of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare, a representative body of health ministers from all states of India, who passed a unanimous resolution regarding the approach and methodology of WHO resulting into “excess mortality reports”.

 Mandaviya acknowledged the key role played by WHO to mitigate global health crisis and said there was a need to ensure centrality of WHO in global architecture and also increase contribution to the organisation by members. The steps would have to be linked to an accountability framework, value for money approach and genuine engagement with members, he added.

Besides equitable access to medical countermeasures including aspects related to intellectual property, need for cost-effective research, technology transfer and regional manufacturing capacities must also remain an important focus area of WHO, the Union Health Minister said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also underscored the need for building a resilient global supply chain to enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines, the need for streamlining of WHO’s approval process for vaccines and therapeutics and reform as well as strengthening of WHO to build a more resilient global health security architecture, Mandaviya said.