New malaria estimate says 205,000 die in India
0 
Disputed method
WHO rejected their argument.
"Although the present estimation procedures have their limitations, WHO has serious doubts about the high estimate of 200,000 malaria deaths in India obtained by Dingra et al. These doubts arise, in part, from the shortcomings of the 'verbal autopsy' approach used in this study," WHO's Robert Newman said via e-mail.
"Verbal autopsy is not a trustworthy method for counting malaria deaths because the symptoms of malaria are shared with many other common causes of acute fever," he added.
"Recent work by WHO and partners in one Indian setting showed that as few as 4 percent of deaths attributed to malaria by verbal autopsy were actually caused by malaria."
WHO estimates that 863,000 people died from malaria worldwide in 2008, down from 881,000 in 2006.
In a commentary, experts not involved in the study noted that 86 percent of deaths from malaria in India did not occur in any formal healthcare facility linked to the national disease reporting system.
"The true effect of the malaria burden in India remains uncertain but evidence is increasing that the scale of the burden has been greatly underestimated," wrote Bob Snow of the KEMRI-University of Oxford-Wellcome Trust Collaborative Programme in Kenya and his colleagues.
They suggested that heavily populated, remote regions exposed to malaria with unreliable access to health care, such as Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia may also have a undocumented malaria burden.
Go to Forum >>0 Comments