Viral anti-vax posts weaponise Philippine inoculation fears
Misinformation and anti-vaccine sentiment are hindering public health efforts in the Philippines, with social media influencers weaponizing unrelated health incidents to spread fear. Health officials note that this trend is a major driver of vaccine hesitancy, complicating efforts to restore routine immunization rates.
Why it matters
The spread of medical misinformation on social media poses a direct threat to public health and the success of national vaccination campaigns.
MANILA: When Jenette Torres Odena's three-year-old son fell ill days after receiving a jab as part of a Philippine vaccination drive, his photograph quickly spread on Facebook alongside claims the inoculation had killed him.
Doctors found no link between the boy's condition and the measles-rubella vaccine, and he went on to fully recover, but by then his image had appeared in anti-vaccine videos viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
"I kept praying for my son to recover and suddenly they were killing him on Facebook."
The videos were part of a wave of misinformation that accompanied a child vaccination campaign this year that saw more than seven million Filipinos inoculated. Some 230,000 declined the jab.
The Department of Health said concerns about side effects accounted for 66 percent of refusals and called misinformation spread by social media influencers a "major driver" of vaccine fear.
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