Viral Anti-Vaccine Posts Exploit Fears Over Philippine Immunisation Drive

When Jenette Torres Odena’s three-year-old son fell ill days after receiving a measles-rubella vaccine during a vaccination campaign in the Philippines, his photograph was quickly circulated on Facebook alongside claims that the jab had killed him.

Doctors found no connection between the child’s condition and the vaccine. He eventually made a full recovery, but his photograph had already been featured in anti-vaccine videos viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

“I felt like crying,” Odena told AFP.

“I kept praying for my son to recover and suddenly they were killing him on Facebook.”

The incident was part of a wider wave of misinformation surrounding a nationwide child vaccination campaign that immunised more than seven million Filipinos this year. Around 230,000 people declined the vaccine.

The Philippine Department of Health said concerns over possible side effects accounted for 66 percent of vaccine refusals, identifying misinformation spread by social media influencers as a “major driver” of vaccine hesitancy.

The Philippines has struggled to rebuild routine childhood immunisation coverage after years of declining rates. The drop contributed to a polio resurgence in 2019 and recurring measles outbreaks.

Much of the misinformation circulating online has revived conspiracy theories that gained traction globally during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has also tapped into lingering concerns over vaccine safety following the controversial rollout of a dengue vaccine in the Philippines a decade ago.

“Vaccine hesitancy should not simply be understood as a lack of scientific knowledge among the public,” Daniel Fritz Silvallana, a health communication researcher at Deakin University in Australia, told AFP.

“In the Philippine context, it is also connected to questions of trust, politics, and people’s previous experiences with vaccination and public health institutions,” he said.

‘Everyday Slaughter’

Within days of Odena’s son’s photograph appearing online, Facebook content creator Maharani Sona Shiloh used the image in a video presenting it as evidence that the vaccination campaign was harming children.

Shiloh also cited US President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to reduce the number of vaccine doses administered to American children in an attempt to support her claims.

The video, which was viewed hundreds of thousands of times, featured the child’s photograph alongside an image of Trump and the words “Everyday slaughter.”

Facebook eventually removed the page after being contacted by AFP. Three affiliated pages, however, remained active.

Shiloh rejected accusations that she was spreading harmful misinformation and described herself as a human rights advocate.

“People call us crazy,” she told AFP. “Why is it that human beings don’t have the right to challenge these things?”

The 44-year-old said she became involved in anti-vaccine advocacy years before the Covid-19 pandemic. She later became connected with church groups and other advocacy circles that campaign against SIM card registration and policies they associate with a purported “New World Order.”

Some of Shiloh’s videos, which have attracted millions of views, claimed vaccines contained dangerous substances such as “human placenta” and “formalin”. Others alleged that the World Health Organization was attempting to reduce the global population.

One mother, who asked AFP not to identify her to protect her children, said she postponed vaccinating them after watching Shiloh’s videos.

“I watched Ms Maharani’s videos because I was looking for more information. They gave additional knowledge… so it helped me to think more carefully,” she said.

A week after Facebook shut down the page, the mother said she was still undecided about vaccinating her children, citing concerns shared with her husband about possible side effects.

Rebuilding Public Trust

Vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris of the University of Auckland said the claims made in such videos rely primarily on fear rather than scientific evidence.

“Recognized vaccine ingredients become mysterious contaminants. Rare adverse events become brain damage, epilepsy, organ failure and death,” she told AFP.

For healthcare workers on the ground, however, the impact of such content is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

“They get scared because the vlog said vaccines are fatal,” said Wenna Mae Belen, a rural health worker in Sorsogon province.

Belen said some conversations with parents had also become increasingly hostile.

“They tell me if something bad happens, they’ll make me suck the vaccines out of their kids’ bodies.”

The 25-year-old health worker said Facebook bears “major responsibility” for the spread of vaccine misinformation but cautioned that confronting influencers such as Shiloh and their followers directly would not solve the problem.

Instead, rebuilding confidence in vaccination will require time, patience and open conversations with parents, she said.

“It isn’t enough for us to just say: ‘We’re the experts, so trust us’.”