India malaria deaths underestimated

The number of people dying from malaria in India has been underestimated, according to a study report.

The report published in The Lancet, world’s premiere general medical journal, claimed there are 13 times more malaria deaths in India than the World Health Organization (WHO)’s figures.

The latest study report said that more than 200,000 deaths per year are caused by malaria.

However, the WHO said the figure was apparently too high.

The Lancet research was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, the Canadian Institute of Health Research and the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, the BBC said.

The new figures raised doubts over the total number of malaria deaths worldwide.

Calculating how many people die from malaria is difficult as most cases that are diagnosed and treated do not result in fatalities.

People who die of extremely high fevers in the community can be misdiagnosed and the cause of death can be attributed to other diseases and vice versa.

As most deaths in India occur at home, without medical intervention, cause of death is seldom medically certified.

There are about 1.3 million deaths from infectious diseases, where acute fever is the main symptom in rural areas in India.

In this study, trained field workers interviewed families, asking them to describe how their relatives died.

In what is called verbal autopsy, two doctors then reviewed each description and decided if the death was caused by malaria.

Some 122,000 premature deaths between 2001 and 2003 were investigated and the findings suggested that 205,000 deaths before the age of 70, mainly in rural areas, are caused by malaria each year.

The WHO estimated that malaria caused between 10,000-21,000 deaths in India in 2006.

There may also be considerable under-reporting of malaria deaths in other highly populated countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia.