Discrepancies in Bengal’s infection data, death toll doubles in five days
KOLKATA : West Bengal’s official Covid-19 death toll has doubled in five days to 68 after it adopted Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) protocols to record fatalities from the disease and scrapped the committee of doctors that, till April 30, audited these deaths.
Confusion has surrounded West Bengal methodology of determining the numbers of deaths from Covid-19, with the state government initially reluctant to attribute the fatalities of patients with pre-existing conditions such as heart disease or diabetes to the infectious disease.
On many days, the West Bengal government did not publish data of deaths and infections. It also recently revised the format of its health bulletin entirely. The government began to give data only for active cases and made no mention of the cumulative figure. This led to confusion over the number of total positives. Experts say that because of the unavailability of data for several days, health care workers have found it difficult to ascertain the pattern of the disease in the state.
Bengal, which has now begun publishing cumulative data on infections, has also started taking into account co-morbid conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and other diseases.
Between March 23 and April 30, the state attributed the deaths of only 33 people to the coronavirus disease, Covid-19, and that of 72 others, who tested positive for the virus, to co-morbidities.
After it was criticised by the central government for doing this, and after doctors in the state recommended that it scrap the audit committee, the state government decided to follow rules set by ICMR, India’s apex medical research body and the nodal body for Covid-19 treatment and procedures in the country.
Since May 1, 35 more deaths have been recorded due to the virus and none to co-morbidities. The state said it would not add the 72 previous deaths to its official fatality count. Bengal’s dashboard on Tuesday night was 1,344 cases (85 new), 68 deaths (seven in past 24 hours) and 264 recoveries.
“During chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s meeting with doctors’ associations on April 28, we told her that the deaths needed to be declared as per World Health Organization (WHO)’s guidelines, using International Classification of Disease (ICD) 10 coding, in short, by mentioning Covid-19 in the death certificate of every one testing positive. She agreed to our suggestions, and sought 10 days’ time to fix all the errors that we pointed out. It’s good to see she has heeded our suggestions and things are changing for the better,” said Kaushik Chaki, secretary of the West Bengal Doctors’ Forum.
On the 72 deaths not being included in the net count, Dr Rezaul Karim, who too had met with the CM on April 28, said, “Since the government has acknowledged its mistake and come clean with data, we should bury controversies and should focus on fighting the pandemic.”
Responding to a query on audit committee, the state’s Chandrima Bhattacharya, junior minister for health, said, “Dissecting comorbidity in deaths is an internationally recognised practice.”
In the first week of April, chief minister Mamata Banerjee had appointed the audit committee. Bengal was seamlessly sharing data on Covid-19 till March 31, giving data on a 24-hour basis and also cumulative figures for deaths, people testing positive and recoveries. At the time, the state had suffered three deaths and 27 people tested positive.
On April 1, when three more deaths were reported and 10 tested positive, the daily bulletin kept the total deaths at three and said that it was “subject to confirmation”.
The state did not issue any bulletin for the next two days. From April 4, the bulletin’s format changed: it showed only active cases and mentioned only deaths that had been attributed to Covid-19 by expert committee.
After the central team sought an explanation for this, on April 24, the state shared data of deaths due to “co-morbidity” among those who tested positive.
The state came up with detailed data on May 4, following another letter from the central team, and said it had reported 214 fewer positive cases by April 30.
Taking a dig at the Trinamool Congress government, Sujan Chakraborty, leader of the Left parties in the state assembly, said, “Kerala found innovative ways to fight Covid-19 and everyone can see the results. Bengal has found an innovative way to suppress data related to deaths and of people testing positive.”