The Department of Health (DOH) said it will vaccinate 2.8 million children in Mindanao against measles and rubella as part of a nationwide immunization drive.

During a site visit to Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital in Tala, Caloocan on Tuesday, 6 January, Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said the agency plans to vaccinate all Filipino children aged six months to five years.

“Measles is a very contagious disease. One person with measles can infect as many as 16 children. So in one classroom, they can infect everyone. So it will spread quickly,” Herbosa said.

“Then a certain percentage will have a pro-pneumonia and can die. So this is what we’re preventing. We’re preventing another outbreak of measles,” he added.

After Mindanao, Herbosa said the vaccination campaign will expand to Luzon and the Visayas in June.

“Our target of vaccinating children in the said age group is 11 million in the entire Philippines,” he added.

Sociocultural hindrance

Herbosa recalled that during the DOH’s measles outbreak response immunization in 2024 in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, officials found that 85 percent of mothers were willing to have their children vaccinated.

However, some were unable to do so due to sociocultural practices that require fathers to make health-related decisions.

“In Muslim culture, mothers will always ask their husbands first. So if the father or husband is not at home, and even if the vaccines are there, mothers will not say yes because they are waiting for their husbands’ go signal,” Herbosa said.

“It’s sociocultural. If it weren’t for the fathers, the mother would have their children vaccinated because they understand,” he added.

As of 6 December 2025, the DOH recorded 4,843 measles-rubella cases nationwide, a 29 percent increase from the 3,748 cases logged in 2024.

Of these cases, 73 percent, or 3,511, involved unvaccinated individuals.

The highest number of cases were reported in the National Capital Region (1,027 cases), the Bangsamoro region (768 cases), and Calabarzon (505 cases).