India reports 3,998 Covid deaths after state data correction

MUMBAI, July 21 (Reuters) - India reported its highest death toll in a month on Wednesday - at nearly 4,000 - after its richest state reconciled its death count with 3,509 previously unreported fatalities, the health ministry said.  

Maharashtra, has reported 130,753 of the country’s 418,480 coronavirus deaths, and added 3,509 earlier deaths to its tally, the Federal Health Ministry said on Wednesday.  

Authorities have in the past attributed other instances of deaths going unreported to administrative errors, before the mistakes are discovered and the numbers appear in official data.  

Last month, the state of Bihar raised its death toll by more than 5,000 in a day when it included some unrecorded data.  

India’s tally of infections stands at 31.22 million, with a death toll of 418,480, according to official data.  

But the Washington-based Center for Global Development estimated on Tuesday that India’s real death toll from COVID-19 could be as high as 4.9 million.   

On Wednesday, the government reported 42,015 new coronavirus infections in the previous 24 hours, health ministry data showed.