India will soon revise its malaria mortality figures, with the new estimates expected to be at least 20 times more than what the health ministry portrays at present.

A 16-member committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research, headed by its former director general Dr Padam Singh Pradhan, has found that the actual number of malaria deaths in India on an average would be around 40,297 — around 40 times higher than present estimates. In a first such admission, India's National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) chief Dr AC Dhariwal told TOI that India's malaria mortality figure was definitely much higher than what is officially quoted.