Maha reconciled 13K deaths since May 21

MUMBAI: Maharashtra added over 13,700 deaths in its data reconciliation process over the past 22 days. Since May 21, the state reconciled 13,708 Covid-19 fatalities and added to the toll, health department data showed.

However, state health department officials clarified that the reconciliation process was owing to delayed reporting of deaths and not because of underreporting or misreporting. State surveillance officer Dr Pradeep Awate said that there is no question of hiding the death count.

As per the state health department data, between May 21 and June 12, Maharashtra added 21,715 fatalities, of which 13,708 were reconciliation deaths. In the past three days, the state added 1,522, 2,213 and 1,606 deaths through the reconciliation process. The cumulative number of people who died due to Covid-19 is now 108,333.

Officials said that the reporting of deaths on the Centre’s portal is a time-consuming process and the large number of Covid-19 cases in April and May led to delay in reporting these deaths. A statement from the health department read, “The scope of data on Covid-19 cases, recovery and deaths is vast. For that, the state’s integrated disease surveillance programme is working in a transparent manner... Due to technical reasons, there is a delay in reporting data. However, the districts and civic corporations have been asked to immediately complete it.”

A senior health official said that the districts update cases on CV Analytics portal and deaths on Covid-19 portal of the Union government and the process of reconciliation of Covid-19 cases and deaths happens fortnightly. “There was a delay by private hospitals and district administration due to the load during the second wave. Private hospitals have been provided with an app to upload discharges and deaths, but they do not do it regularly. Districts or civic corporations then compile this data and add the data. Besides that, laboratories have to upload positive cases on ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) portal. When there is a delay from that end, there can’t be real-time reporting of deaths and discharges,” the official said.

Another senior official said that the parameters for categorising a death as Covid and noncovid are laid down by ICMR and World Health Organization.

On Saturday, Maharashtra added 10,697 Covid-19 cases and 1,966 fatalities, including 1,606 reconciliation deaths.