e-Paper
India on Thursday recorded a global record of more than 6,000 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours after one state dramatically revised upwards its data, stoking suspicions that the country's toll is much higher than reported.
According to health ministry figures, 6,148 people died in the previous 24 hours, taking total fatalities to 359,676, the world's third highest.
The previous world record, according to an AFP tally, was 5,527 in the United States on Feb 12, although this was also due to an upwards revision of earlier deaths.
On Wednesday, Bihar hiked its death toll by around 4,000 to 9,429 after reviewing death records, officials said.
The state high court in Patna demanded an audit of the figures after allegations that the local government was hiding the scale of infections and deaths.
Similar accusations have been levelled at other state governments after a recent Covid surge saw crematoriums overwhelmed in many places and hundreds of bodies dumped in rivers or buried in shallow graves.
With record-keeping poor even in normal times, many experts believe India's death toll is several times higher than the official number, meaning it could be over a million - which would make it the world's highest.
Suspicions have been heightened by the fact that death rates in many countries, for example Brazil and the United States, are several times higher than in India.
Indian hospitals ran out of beds and life-saving oxygen during a devastating second wave of Covid in April and May and people died in parking lots outside hospitals and at their homes.
Many of those deaths were not recorded in Covid-19 tallies, doctors and health experts say.
Health experts believe both coronavirus infections and deaths are being significantly undercounted across the country partly because test facilities are rare in rural areas, where two-thirds of Indians live, and hospitals are few and far between.
Many people have fallen ill and died at home without being tested for the coronavirus. Families have also placed bodies in the Ganges river or buried them in shallow graves. Those people would likely not have been registered as Covid victims.
"Under-reporting is a widespread problem, not necessarily deliberate, often because of inadequacies," said Mr Rajib Dasgupta, head of the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. "In the rural context, whatever states may say or claim, testing is not simple, easy or accessible".
AFP, Reuters
