Safe To Expect Global Covid Death Toll Around 6-8 Million: WHO

"We are likely facing a significant undercount of total deaths directly and indirectly attributed to COVID-19," it said.

Representational Image (Source:AFP)

New Delhi: The global death toll according to World Health Organization is over 3.4 million but the UN body say that the count is much higher than this. In its annual World Health Statistics report, the WHO estimated that total deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 were at least 3 million last year or 1.2 million more than officially reported.

The WHO said that the current estimate can be explained by under-reporting by countries on the number of infections and deaths tolls.

"At the time of writing, more than 160 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and 3.3 million deaths had been reported to WHO. Yet these numbers are only a partial picture, as many countries have not been able to accurately measure and report on deaths that are either directly or indirectly attributable to Covid-19," WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in the report.

This number would truly be two to three times higher. So I think safely about 6 to 8 million deaths could be an estimate on a cautionary note," said Samira Asma, WHO's Assistant Director-General in its data and analytics division during a virtual press briefing.

William Msemburi, WHO data analyst explained that the numbers included both unreported COVID-19 deaths as well as indirect deaths due to the lack of hospital capacity and restrictions on movements among other factors. He said, "The challenge is that the reported COVID-19 death toll figures is an undercount of that full impact".

Tedros added, "One of the greatest lessons from the pandemic is the importance of timely, reliable, actionable and disaggregated data. This requires strong country data and health information systems through collaboration between governments, ministries of health, national statistical offices, and registrar generals".

Over 86% of the 23.1 million cases reported in the South-East Asia Region to date are attributed to India. The report also stated that, about 48% of the all reported Covid-19-associated deaths have occurred in the Region of the Americas, and 34 per cent in the European Region.

According to Union Health Ministry, India's total death toll is 2,95,525 after 4,194 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. The total cases reached 2,62,89,290 after 2,57,299 new Covid-19 cases were reported. During the second wave, the Covid-19 virus managed to reach the rural part of the country where the health facilities is limited, and many are dying even before they get tested for coronavirus.

Although, the official cases have seemingly dropped, there has been a steep rise in the number of deaths for the past few days. Last week, the Health Ministry reported a record 4,529 deaths in a single day, which is the higest record than any other country at any time during the pandemic.