The Inter-Ministerial Central Team, which recently made a visit to West Bengal, has asked the state government to explain the methodology used by it to ascertain deaths due to COVID-19. The IMCT wanted to know whether the methodology adopted by the ‘committee of doctors’ in the state is in line with the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
In a letter to West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, IMCT head Apurva Chandra said they were not convinced with the state government’s reasoning that if a COVID-19 patient in the state dies in a road accident, then he or she cannot be said to have died of coronavirus.
"Principal Secretary, Health, in his presentation on April 23, gave some reasons for the establishment of the committee of doctors and also mentioned that if a COVID-19 patient dies in a road accident, he cannot be said to have died of COVID. The IMCT did not find the reasoning convincing as there is no comparison between a road death and a death in a hospital due to disease," said Chandra in the letter.
The Mamata Banerjee government had constituted a committee of senior doctors to ascertain the cause of the death of a COVID-19 patient, inviting criticism from opposition parties. IMCT asked whether such a committee exists for any other disease in West Bengal.
The Central team also said they wanted an interaction with the committee of doctors.
West Bengal had locked horns with Centre after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs sent a high-level team to the state to review the situation in districts identified as COVID-19 hotspots. The team was divided into two groups and the first group visited Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Medinipur while the other group travelled to Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Kalimpong. The first team was led by Chandra while the second team was led by Joshi, both additional secretary rank officers in the central government.
The teams comprised public health specialists and officers of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), whose expertise can be leveraged by the state government for management of COVID-19 pandemic.
West Bengal claimed that the state government was informed about the teams' visit three hours after their arrival in the state, which they said was unacceptable.
