Indian state sharply raises COVID-19 death toll as country braces for a possib le next wave.

Indian state sharply raises COVID-19 death toll prompting call for wide review An Indian state has raised its COVID-19 death toll sharply higher after the discovery of thousands of unreported cases, lending weight to suspicion that India's overall death tally is significantly more than the official figure. Manas Mishra,Neha Arora Reuters

An Indian state has raised its COVID-19 death toll sharply higher after the discovery of thousands of unreported cases, lending weight to suspicion that India’s overall death tally is significantly more than the official figure.

Indian hospitals ran out of beds and life-saving oxygen during a devastating second wave of coronavirus in April and May and people died in parking lots outside hospitals and at their homes.

Many of those deaths were not recorded in COVID-19 tallies, doctors and health experts say.

India has the second-highest tally of COVID-19 infections in the world after the United States, with 29.2 million cases and 359,676 deaths, according to health ministry data.

But the discovery of several thousand unreported deaths in the state of Bihar has raised suspicion that many more coronavirus victims have not been included in official figures.

The health department in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, revised its total COVID-19 related death toll to more than 9,429 from about 5,424 on Wednesday.

The newly reported deaths had occurred last month and state officials were investigating the lapse, a district health official said, blaming the oversight on private hospitals. ...

"These deaths occurred 15 days ago and were only uploaded now in the government portal. Action will be taken against some of the private hospitals," said the official, who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Health experts say they believe both coronavirus infections and deaths are being significantly undercounted across the country partly because test facilities are rare in rural areas, where two-thirds of Indians live, and hospitals are few and far between. ...

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