MANILA, Philippines — The Division of Well being (DOH) shut down rumors of a deliberate lockdown amid mpox instances monitored throughout the nation, calling a viral social media publish indicating a lockdown by June 10 as “pretend.”
“There isn’t any plan to have a lockdown. We’d like first to declare an outbreak if there’s a want, however there isn’t a outbreak (of mpox). Lockdown is a really excessive measure; we used it through the pandemic. Mpox has to change into a pandemic, which it isn’t,” DOH Secretary Ted Herbosa stated at a press briefing yesterday.
“Lockdown doesn’t work for mpox as a result of it’s (transmitted by means of) skin-to-skin contact, so if there’s a lockdown, there could possibly be extra skin-to-skin contact,” he added.
Herbosa suggested the general public to be extra discerning of data on social media.
“That’s the drawback with social media, there are such a lot of misinformation. Really, the instances reported in quite a lot of LGUs
– these had been reviews made a number of weeks in the past however had been simply picked up by social media,” he stated.
The DOH chief stated they carried out a assessment of mpox instances recorded within the nation and noticed no enhance.
“Evaluating with mpox instances recorded final 12 months, the variety of instances this 12 months is decrease so there isn’t a enhance in instances,” Herbosa famous.
He identified that every one the instances detected within the nation are the milder Clade II variants.
“That doesn’t necessitate a public well being emergency of worldwide concern. What falls below PHEIC is the mpox of Clade IB variant. There’s none (but) recorded within the Philippines like that,” Herbosa famous.
The pretend advisory that used the logos of the DOH and World Well being Group (WHO) additionally famous that obligatory use of face masks can be enforced nationwide.
“The unfold of mpox is thru intimate, pores and skin to pores and skin contact. Even in the event you put on (a) face masks, if there may be pores and skin to pores and skin contact, you’ll be able to nonetheless have mpox. The (face) masks is for airborne or aerosol unfold microbes. It’s used to forestall transmission of flu, cough and colds,” Herbosa defined.
Primarily based on the WHO advisory, international locations ought to monitor if they’ve Clade IB mpox, Herbosa added.
“That’s what we’re doing. The DOH is conducting monitoring and surveillance of (mpox) instances,” he stated.
In response to DOH information, extra mpox instances had been detected in April 2025 in comparison with Might.