India registers another record Covid-19 spike amid doubts over deaths figures

The Indian health ministry announced on Thursday that the country has registered another record single-day spike in Covid-19 cases, as 97,894  fresh infections were reported over the past 24 hours from across the country, taking India's overall case tally up to 5.12 million.

India has also been recording more than 1,000 deaths for the past two weeks, with the officially declared death toll now standing at over 83,000 deaths.

The numbers of fatalities announced by the government have recently sparked some doubts, especially when families of victims who have succumbed to the virus assert that the names of their relatives who died of the infection are not registered on any list indicating the real reason for death.

Doubts about the death figures announced by the government

The Indian government has been boasting about the country's soaring recovery rate and declining fatality rate despite the increasing number of new infections.

However, the family of Narayan Mitra, a man who died on 16 July, a day after being admitted to the hospital for fever and breathing difficulties, say his name never appeared on any of the official lists of those to have died of Covid-19.

Although all results, as well as his family, confirm that his death was due to Covid-19, Mitra still isn’t counted as a coronavirus victim. Such incidents have recently raised concerns about the official figures announced by authorities, especially when a country that is reporting over 90,000 new daily infections is only averaging around 1,000 deaths a day.