In Nicaragua, between 12,095 and 16,517 citizens died from the pandemic between 2020 and 2021, according to a global study of excess mortality attributable to covid-19, published this Thursday by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the document, there were 55 times more deaths from the coronavirus in the country than those admitted by the Government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, which until December 31, 2021 counted only 218 deaths from covid-19.
This WHO estimate confirms an analysis of excess mortality published by CONFIDENTIAL last March, which puts 14,815 deaths attributable to covid-19 in the same period taken by the WHO. The data of CONFIDENTIAL It is based on the Health Map of the Ministry of Health (Minsa).
The WHO study concludes that of the minimum number of deaths attributable to covi-19 (12,095), 54.8% were men and 45.1% women. Of these, 86.7% are people over 60 years of age, the population group most vulnerable to the new coronavirus.
Excess mortality in Central America
The data also reveal that, in the Central American region, Nicaragua is the country with the greatest difference between reported deaths and those estimated due to excess mortality: 55 times.
The second country that has a greater difference with its official figures, but not comparable with the Nicaraguan records, is El Salvador. In this nation there were 4.5 times more deaths than the official ones. In other words, from 3,824 reported, they would rise to 17,036.
Meanwhile, in Guatemala, which has the highest number of deaths in Central America, three times more than the 16,107 recognized in 2021 would have occurred. The countries with the least difference between their official statistics and excess mortality are Costa Rica, Panama and Belize. .
Since 2020, studies on excess mortality in Nicaragua have shown considerable contrast with the opaque figures from the Ortega government, which since the first weeks of the pandemic —in March 2020— hides the number of hospitalized patients, the real number of infected people, the impact of the variants, the covid-19 tests, among other data that have not allowed the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to carry out a “exhaustive assessment” of the impact of the coronavirus in the country.
The Minsa assures that, since October 2020, in Nicaragua only one person per week has died in the entire country. This figure, statistically unlikely, did not change even when the country suffered the second wave that occurred between August and September 2021, which according to the same official data caused more infections than the first, which occurred between May and July of the previous year.
In January, an analysis of excess mortality by the data unit of the British media outlet The Economist estimated that in Nicaragua there were between 10,000 and 30,000 deaths, a figure 137 times higher than the 218 deaths officially admitted until 2021. Despite In these studies, the regime has never commented on the matter and rather launched a wave of threats against doctors who made assessments of the pandemic, whom it called “pandemic terrorists.”
The world lost 14.9 million lives due to covid-19
The study of WHO estimates that worldwide there were 14.9 million deaths from covid-19, that is, 2.7 more than those officially reported as of December 2021. Of these 6.8 million deaths occurred in three countries: India, Russia and Indonesia. In America, there were five countries with the highest number of deaths: the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Colombia, these add up to a balance of 2.6 million.
“These sobering data not only point to the impact of the pandemic, but also to the need for all countries to invest in more resilient health systems that can sustain essential health services during crises, including stronger health information systems. ”, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO.
The excess mortality used by the WHO and other researchers is calculated as the difference between the number of deaths that have occurred and the number that would be expected in the absence of the pandemic based on data from previous years. The excess deaths are attributed to covid-19.
“You have to understand the situation of the countries that did not have the capacity to report all the deaths, not even those directly caused because the victim had not undergone a test. In other countries there was an interruption of care for the chronically ill because the system and staff were totally dedicated to the pandemic,” WHO Deputy Director-General for Emergencies Socé Fall said.
The WHO global study was conducted by the COVID-19 Mortality Assessment Technical Advisory Group, co-chaired by Professor Debbie Bradshaw and Dr Kevin McCormack with extensive support from Professor Jon Wakefield of the University of Washington.
“These new estimates use the best available data and have been produced using a robust methodology and a fully transparent approach,” said Dr Samira Asma, WHO Assistant Director-General for Data, Analytics and Delivery.
*With information from EFE
