Government and Policy

Kenya Underreported Covid-19 Deaths By 20,000

BY Jane Muia · May 12, 2022 10:05 am

KEY POINTS

WHO reports that 15 million people died of Covid-19 globally, while only 5.4 million people are reported to have died of the illness over the two years.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

At the end of 2021, the ministry of health reported 5,378 total deaths. This means that the deaths for the year under review were 3,697 given that 2020 deaths were 1,681.

The World Health Organization has revealed that Kenya underreported Covid 19 deaths by more than 20,000. Data from WHO reveals that this was excess deaths by 5.6 times of the confirmed Covid-19 deaths.

At the end of 2021, the ministry of health reported 5,378 total deaths. This means that the deaths for the year under review were 3,697 given that 2020 deaths were 1,681. However, according to WHO, the excess deaths in 2021 were 24,471, meaning there were 20,774 under-reported deaths.

This is even as the WHO reports that 15 million people died of Covid-19 globally, while only 5.4 million people are reported to have died of the illness over the two years.

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“Excess deaths as per the WHO report are obtained from calculating the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred in the period and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from earlier years, up to 2019,” explained Dr. Ahmed Kalebi, a consultant pathologist.

At the same time, the country recorded more deaths during the second year of the pandemic compared to the other years before the pandemic bringing the number to 45 per 100,000, which translates to 24,471 more deaths in the country.

In Kenya’s situation, the mean excess death as determined by WHO is 11 excess deaths for every 100,000 people in the population over the first two years of the pandemic.

WHO also revealed that there were 14.9 million excess deaths globally associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Middle-income countries account for 81% of the 14.9 million excess deaths (53% in lower-middle-income countries and 28% in upper-middle-income countries) over the 24-month period, with high-income and low-income countries each accounting for 15and 4 percent respectively.

So far, the Ministry of Health has reported 5,649 covid deaths, while global deaths as reported by WHO stand at 6,258,023.