new delhi recent media reports claiming that indias covid19 death data is vastly undercounted have been debunked by the government on thursday the centre said the reports assume that all excess mortality figures are covid deaths which is not based on facts and is totally fallacious the union health ministry explains indias robust death registration system makes it highly unlikely to miss out on deaths even as some cases could go undetected as per the principles of infectious disease management in the news reports quoting findings from some recent studies the us and european countries agespecific infection fatality rates have been used to calculate excess deaths in india based on seropositivitythe extrapolation of deaths has been done on an audacious assumption that the likelihood of any given infected person dying is the same across countries dismissing the interplay between various direct and indirect factors such as race ethnicity the genomic constitution of a population previous exposure levels to other diseases and the associated immunity developed in that population the statement saidfurthermore seroprevalence studies are not only used to guide strategy and measures to further prevent the spread of infection to the vulnerable population but are also used as another basis to extrapolate deathsthe studies also have another potential concern that the antibody titers may diminish over time leading to underestimation of true prevalence and corresponding overestimation of infection fatality ratefurther the reports assume that all the excess mortality figures are covid19 deaths which is not based on facts and totally fallacious excess mortality is a term used to describe an allcause mortality figure and attributing these deaths to covid19 is completely misleading the statement saidindia has a thorough contacttracing strategy all the primary contacts whether symptomatic or asymptomatic are tested for covid19 the true detected cases are the ones that test positive with rtpcr which is the gold standard of the covid19 testin addition to the contacts given the vast availability of more than 2700 testing laboratories in the country anyone who wants to get tested is able to get the test done this coupled with awareness campaigns about the symptoms and access to medical care has ensured people could reach out to hospitals in case of needgiven the robust and statutebased death registration system in india missing out on the deaths is unlikelythis could also be seen in the case fatality rate which as of 31st december 2020 stood at 145 percent and even after an unexpected surge observed in the second wave in aprilmay 2021 the case fatality rate today stands at 134 percent it saidmoreover the reporting of daily new cases and deaths in india follows a bottomup approach where districts report the number of cases and deaths to the state governments and to the union ministry on a continuous basis the statement saidas early as may 2020 to avoid inconsistency or confusion in the number of deaths being reported the indian council of medical research icmr issued guidance for the appropriate recording of covid19 related deaths