Page 56 - COVID-19-Mortality-review-in-Malaysia-and-updates-on-clinical-management-of-COVID-19

Definition of COVID-19 death

In January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined the COVID-19 death
as the death of a person with laboratory confirmation of COVID-19 infection,

irrespective of clinical signs and symptoms. We followed this definition when we had
our first COVID-19 mortality case on March 17th, 2020.

The definition of COVID-19 mortality rate is the number of deaths with
positive COVID-19 laboratory tests divided by the number of positive cases at
the given period of time.

However, after we had followed the initial definition, on the 16th April 2020, WHO
had published the “International Guidelines for Certification and Classification

(Coding) of COVID-19 as Cause of Death”. It was stated that:
“a death due to COVID-19 is defined for surveillance purposes as a death resulting
from a clinically compatible illness, in a probable or confirmed COVID-19 case
unless there is a clear alternative cause of death that cannot be related to
COVID-19 disease (e.g. trauma). There should be no period of complete recovery
from COVID-19 between illness and death. A death due to COVID-19 may not be
attributed to another disease (e.g. cancer) and should be counted independently
of pre-existing conditions that are suspected of triggering a severe course of
COVID-19.”

The countries who had their first death after the 16th April 2020, they would use
this new revised definition, but for us, we are still using the initial WHO’s definition.