Peru becomes the country with the highest per capita mortality rate in the world

Peru doubles the number of deaths registered by COVID-19, after comparing its epidemiological situation with the rest of the countries in a similar situation; on Wednesday, Peru has become the country with the most deaths per capita in the world. The authorities confirmed at the beginning of the week that the number of deaths had risen to 180,000 people, double the previous figure of 70,000. This new number represents part of the new "excess deaths" figure, which is a comparison of the number of deaths this year compared to the same number in 2019 and previous years.

This figure was verified as it is every month by the Peruvian and international council of experts, according to the president of the Council of Ministers, Violeta Bermudez. It should be recalled that in the region, Peru has been one of the highest cases of pandemic in Latin America, with a collapsed health system due to a lack of beds in intensive care units and a shortage of oxygen cylinders. In the accumulated data for the whole month of March and April, only those people who died after testing positive were counted, so the National Computer System of Deaths only realised that there was a problem with the figures. 

If we look at other countries in the region, for example, Colombia and Bolivia have been able to register between 88,282 and 14,000 deaths and, on the other hand, we have Brazil which has one of the highest figures in the world, with some 460,000 deaths, but Peru has the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 in relation to the size of its population (32.5 million), meaning that it has 500 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. "We have not managed to reduce the transfer of the virus, nor to have hospitals equipped with intensive care beds or with what is necessary for the care of the disease. There has not been enough science to care for people. It's the legacy of not investing in science," said Mateo Prochazka, an epidemiologist at the health ministry. 

Another conclusion reached by the experts is that new criteria for analysing death from COVID-19 have been determined. The usual criteria used in most countries are virological, which refers to deaths within 60 days of diagnosis with molecular or antigen testing. Then the serological, which refers to the case of a person dying within 60 days of the rapid test; the radiological is through imaging that can terminate the viral load; and finally, the epidemiological. The new criteria determined that suspected cases confirmed by the National Epidemiology Network should be added, as well as clinical cases, which would be those that coincide between symptoms and the disease without a positive test.

"The confirmation of COVID-19 cases and deaths is a laborious process that requires information, time and resources, including laboratory test results, data from medical records, death certificates, among others. For this reason, there is a time lag from death to confirmation in the information systems, represented in the time required to obtain the results of laboratory tests, in the travel time of physical death certificates in remote or rural areas to the data entry points, as well as delays in data entry by epidemiology personnel in the field," adds the specialists' document.

Latin America Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra