In keeping with its consistent stand, India expressed dismay and concern over World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent exercise on all-cause excess mortality at the 75th session of World Health Assembly in Geneva. India reiterated that country specific authentic data published by the statutory authority has not been taken into account.
“India would like to express its disappointment over the manner in which the report by WHO on all cause excess mortality was prepared and published ignoring the concerns expressed by India and other countries over the methodology and sources of data, setting aside the country specific authentic data from the statutory authority of India,” Union Minister of Health Mansukh Mandaviya said while addressing the session at WHO headquarters.
It was the first in-person Health Assembly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this regard, the Union Health Minister conveyed the collective disappointment of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare, a representative body of Health Ministers from all states of India, as they passed a unanimous resolution regarding the approach and methodology of WHO on excess mortality reports.
On May 6, WHO had stated in its report on excess deaths due to Covid-19, that approx. 4.7 million deaths have happened in India, directly or indirectly attributable to Covid-19 in India in 2020 and 2021. However, India had strongly objected to the use of mathematical models for projecting excess mortality estimates in view of the availability of authentic data. Mandaviya highlighted India’s commitment to build a more resilient global health security architecture.
“There is a need to build a resilient global supply chain to enable equitable access to vaccines and medicines, streamlining WHO’s approval process for vaccines and therapeutics and strengthen WHO to build a more resilient global health security architecture,” he said.
Union Minister of Health Mansukh Mandaviy
As a responsible member of the global community, India is ready to play a key role in these efforts, he added. “India believes that this year’s theme linking peace and health, is timely and pertinent because there can be no sustainable development and universal health and wellbeing without peace,” he said.
It is worth recalling that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said recently that WHO must be reformed to build a more resilient global health security architecture and especially called for streamlining of its approval process for vaccines and therapeutics to keep the supply chains stable and predictable. In his address at the second global Covid virtual summit on May 12, PM Modi had highlighted New Delhi’s role in combating the coronavirus pandemic and said India’s genomics consortium has contributed to the global database of the virus.
Experts quoted in media reports have opined that there is a need to ensure the centrality of WHO in global architecture and increase assessed contribution to WHO in a phased manner, but that, they said, should be linked to an accountability framework, value-for-money approach and genuine engagement with Member States. India, according to these experts, would like to highlight that besides equitable access to medical countermeasures including aspects related to intellectual property, the need for cost-effective research, technology transfer and regional manufacturing capacities must remain an important focus area.
