Figures from Lithuania's electronic health services system show that the country's coronavirus death count is higher by 153 cases than officially reported by the National Public Health Centre (NVSC).
Covid-19 is listed in E-health (Esveikata) as the cause of death of 917 people, Mindaugas Samkus, a spokesman for the Centre of Registers, which administers system, told BNS on Friday.
Meanwhile the figure released by Statistics Lithuania on Friday morning showed that the virus had claimed 764 lives in the country. Fifty-one more fatalities were reported over the weekend.
“[The system's] statistics on deaths and causes of death are currently only provided to the Institute of Hygiene,” Samkus said in a comment. “We do not know where the NVSC gets its data on Covid-19 deaths.”
The NVSC says information about fatal cases comes from hospitals which are required to fill out report forms.
“After information on excess deaths that could have been linked to Covid-19 emerged, the NVSC wrote to the Centre of Registers requesting data on all Covid-19 deaths recorded in the electronic health information system,” Justina Petravičienė, a spokeswoman for the NVSC, told BNS in a comment.
The Centre of Registers confirmed to BNS that it had received the inquiry.
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