Asia's hidden deaths: coronavirus fatalities are being covered up and undercounted
Public is at risk because the true picture of the spread of Covid-19 in India and Pakistan is unknown, doctors warn
The directions on the doctors' duty rota at Murshidabad Medical College Hospital were quite clear. Printed beneath the list of shifts were instructions on what to do if a patient died of Covid-19 while in the West Bengal hospital.
“In case of Covid positive - No mention of Covid in death certificate,” the order said. The rota leaked to the
Telegraph is part of a deliberate strategy by the Indian state of West Bengal to hide the scale of deaths from the new coronavirus, doctors claim.
Medics are being told not to test patients who may have Covid-19 symptoms, while someone can only be classified as having died from the disease by a secretive committee made up of government-appointed doctors.
Similar subterfuge is alleged to be underway in other parts of India, as states lie about their death tolls so ruling parties can point-score against political rivals over their containment of the virus.
The cover-ups are endangering the public and skewing tallies of the real toll of the disease, doctors say. Meanwhile in neighbouring Pakistan, doctors told the
Telegraph that deaths were being undercounted because of stigma around the disease and public resentment at strict burial regulations.
People were unwilling to go to hospital with even severe Covid-19 symptoms because if they died, mourners at their funeral would be strictly limited. As a result people were choosing to die unrecorded at home, doctors said.
Five months since the emergence of the new disease, the lack of large numbers of deaths in South Asia has been one of the biggest puzzles of the global pandemic.
Public is at risk because the true picture of the spread of Covid-19 in India and Pakistan is unknown, doctors warn
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