Pakistani health officials have denied a WHO report on coronavirus deaths around the world, claiming that Pakistan “carefully” documented the deaths using a “meticulously developed” sickness and death reporting system.
“Every number reported along with supporting data has been backed up with efficient and reliable mechanisms,” the health ministry said in a statement.
According to the WHO, the pandemic resulted in 14.9 million more deaths worldwide by the end of 2021, implying that estimates in many nations were significantly under-reported.
Those who died as a direct result of the outbreak, such as healthcare shortages and overburdened hospitals during the peak days of the pandemic, are included in the WHO figures.
According to WHO, twenty nations, accounting for over half of the global population, will account for over 80% of the anticipated global excess mortality from January 2020 to December 2021.
Pakistan was one of 20 countries where the mortality rate was eight times greater, according to the WHO. Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States were among the other countries (US).
Pakistan’s health ministry rejected the WHO mortality figures, saying “Accurate modelling of infectious diseases requires a thorough understanding of ground facts and merely banking on hardcore stats with unrealistic assumptions could be grossly misleading.”
Pakistan’s system of disease and death reporting was “meticulously designed with the help of provincial and local authorities and included thousands of reporting entities with built-in mechanisms of cross verifications”.
