CALOOCAN CITY, June 30 (PIA) — World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe on Tuesday clarified that their agency did not pinpoint the Philippines having the fastest rise in cases of COVID-19 in the Western Pacific region.

During the Laging Handa public briefing powered by the Presidential Communications and affiliate media, Abeyasinghe belied some reports, which claimed that it was the WHO that tagged the Philippines and Singapore among its 22 country members in the region with the most notable spread of the virus.

“The World Health Organization never made such a comment or an assessment,” the doctor said.

“The WHO actually has a dashboard with the numbers of cases. What happened was a journalist had an inquiry, used the dashboard and interpreted it in this way,” he added.

“It’s not the WHO that did this… I’ve seen a lot of commentaries, points of view that WHO did this,” he furthered.

Abeyasinghe said the WHO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, “does not compare countries or make such assessments.”

“All that assessment was done by a journalist… in the Philippines using data that we have in the dashboard like many global dashboards that are available,” he said.

“It is unfair to say that WHO made that comment or assessment. We did not,” he added.

The Philippines has recorded 36,438 COVID-19 cases, with Metro Manila being the hardest hit. In total, 1,255 deaths and 9,956 recoveries have been recorded so far. (PIA NCR)