WHO documents reveal significant information gaps in Bangladesh government Covid-19 data
At least once a week, the Bangladesh government sends data on the number of Covid-19 tests, positive cases and deaths to the World Health Organisation (WHO) which analyses them to produce a weekly Situation Report on the Covid-19 epidemic in Bangladesh, made available on its website. So far WHO has produced 16 reports.
The last two WHO reports, however, shows that there are significant gaps in the Bangladesh government information — involving the age, gender and geographical distribution of Covid-19 cases and deaths
You would expect that that the government would know the age and gender of all those who tested positive for Covid-19 as well as those who died. But going by recent WHO situation reports that is not the case.
In its most recent Situation Report dated 15 June, the WHO states that “age and gender data are currently available for only 24% …[of] the reported confirmed cases.” (emphasis added)
The report states that this means they only know the age and gender of 21,423 out of the 90,619 confirmed cases at the time.
So when WHO’s report says that 26.5% cases were confirmed in people between 31 and 40 years old, 26% in the age group of 21 to 30 years, 18% in the age group of 41 to 50 years and 12% in the age group between 51 and 60 years old — this leaves out of the analysis 76% of all confirmed cases.
More is known about the age and gender of the Covid-19 deaths — but it is still very partial.
WHO says “data was available for 58.9% of COVID-19 related-death[s].” (emphasis added)
That is only 712 out of 1,209 deaths.
However, the most concerning information gap — which has implications of government policy now and going forward — is lack of data on the geographical distribution of Covid-19 positive cases.
In its June 15th report, WHO says that information on the “geographical distribution of confirmed reported COVID-19 cases was available on 57% of cases”. (emphasis added)
That is only 51,271 out of 90,619 confirmed cases.
So when WHO states that 67% of cases are from Dhaka division, 18.% from Chattogram division, 3% are from Mymensingh division, 2.9% are from Khulna division, 2.8% from Sylhet division, 2.6% are from Rangpur division, 2.2% from Rajshahi division, and 1.3% from Barisal division — this does not include 43% of all the cases.
It is clear that it is a Bangladesh government — and not a WHO — information gap, because a similar number of geographical identified cases are provided on the IEDCR website. Add up the number of cases for each division on this page and it only adds up to 52,830 — not 90,619. [It is likely that the difference between the WHO and the IEDCR numbers of 51,271 and 52,830 is that they relate to data collected at different times of the day.]
The lack of reliable data on the distribution of cases could have significant implications for government policy going forward — as how will it know where are the Covid-19 hotspots if the government does not know the location of the confirmed cases?
We have tried to obtain an explanation from IEDCR about the gaps in the data, but have not been able at the time of publication, to obtain an explanation
We asked WHO whether it was concerned about the partial information on age, gender and geographical distribution and its communication director in Dhaka said, “As previously said, we cannot offer additional information than the ones from the report.” (sic)
//DB
