There have been 4 detected cases of monkeypox in the Philippines

Claim: The Philippines has only one confirmed case of monkeypox.

Asked about the state of our Department of Health (DOH) during a September 13 interview with Toni Gonzaga, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said: “Well, ’yung monkeypox alam mo, as best as I can determine, it’s still – we’re okay. We had one case, gumaling na, umuwi na. (You know, monkeypox, as best as I can determine, we’re okay. We had one case, they got better, they went home.) We talked yesterday with some of the health department. We talked about acquisition already of the monkeypox vaccine.”

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: The interview, aired on September 13, has over 2 million views, and 165,000 likes on YouTube, as of writing.

The bottom line: There have been at least 4 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the country as of August 22 – weeks before the September interview.

The fourth monkeypox case had 14 identified close contacts. The 25-year-old patient has not traveled to any country with a confirmed case of the disease. 

There has been no new confirmed case since. Should there be an outbreak of the disease, the DOH has announced that the earliest we can expect a Monkeypox vaccine to be available in the country would be in 2023. – Pola Regalario/Rappler.com

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