Fact Check: No, WHO Hasn’t Ranked Sri Lanka Fifth Best Country For Covid-19 Response; Viral Post Is Fake

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A post doing rounds on social media claims that the World Health Organization (WHO) has released a ranking in which Sri Lanka is ranked fifth in a table of countries’ who re best among countries that responded to COVID-19 battling the coronavirus pandemic.

Vishvas News investigated and found the viral claim is false. The World Health Organization (WHO) has not released any such ranking system. 

Claim

The claim shared on social media has a text superimposed on an image. The text reads: “The WHO declares Sri Lanka’s response to Covid-19 as the world’s fifth best among nations battling the pandemic,” the Sinhala-language text superimposed on the image reads. “A moment when 6.9 million people rescued 20 million people”. 

The archived version of the post can be read here.

Investigation

Vishvas News scanned the social media profiles of WHO but did not find any such ranking released by the organization.

We also searched the official website of WHO but didn’t find any such ranking.

Vishvas News spoke to Technical Officer, WHO Health Emergencies, SEARO. As per the official statement: “WHO has not put out any such ranking. Sri Lanka has been adopting the whole-of-government and a whole-of-society approach needed to tackle a pandemic like COVID-19. Globally and locally, WHO continues to work and support countries with strategic response measures to control COVID-19 transmission. However, WHO does not rank, rate, or compare countries for their response to COVID-19.”

The post is shared on Facebook by a user named Kalum Jayaweera Kalum Jayaweera. We scanned the profile of the user and found that the user has 138 followers.