India Malaria Deaths Are Underestimated by WHO, Researchers Say
India Malaria Deaths Are Underestimated by WHO
Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images
More than 200,000 people may be dying in India each year because of malaria, 13 times more than the World Health Organization estimates.
More than 200,000 people may be dying in India each year because of malaria, 13 times more than the World Health Organization estimates. Photographer: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images
More than 200,000 people may be dying in India each year because of malaria, 13 times more than the World Health Organization estimates, a study found.
Researchers based their estimate on interviews with family members of more than 122,000 people who died between 2001 and 2003. The numbers “greatly exceed” the WHO estimates of 15,000 malaria deaths in India each year, the researchers wrote in the study, published today in the journal The Lancet.
“It shows that malaria kills far more people than previously supposed,” said one of the study authors, Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, in a statement. “This is the first nationwide study that has collected information on causes of death directly from communities.”
Remote regions may have an undocumented malaria burden, because conventional methods of tracking the disease are flawed, according to the authors. In India, the government malaria data, which is used by the Geneva-based WHO, only counts patients who had tested positive for the disease at a hospital or clinic. Others who died of symptoms closely resembling the malady but didn’t get a blood test aren’t included, co-author Vinod Sharma of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi said in an interview today.
The lack of accurate data may hinder efforts by governments and aid organizations to provide diagnosis and treatment to the population at risk, the authors said.
Malaria infects about 250 million people each year and kills almost 1 million, mostly children living in Africa, according to the WHO. It’s the world’s third-deadliest infectious disease behind AIDS and tuberculosis.
To contact the reporter on this story: Adi Narayan in Mumbai at anarayan8@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jason Gale at j.gale@bloomberg.net
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