Epidemic was ‘preventable’

Immunisation expert says Samoa’s measles tragedy should not have happened Samoa’s measles epidemic is ‘tragic’ because it was ‘completely preventable’, according to an expert on global immunisation.

SAMOA – As Samoa’s death toll from measles rises daily, the US Centres for Disease Control and the World Health Organisation are calling for a renewed effort to eliminate measles globally.

The disease killed 180,000 people last year globally – mostly children – and cases in 2018 were up 167 per cent compared with 2016, according to new figures released by the CDC and the WHO this week.

As the epidemic in Samoa has killed 62 people as of Thursday morning– and all but eight of the deaths are children under the age of four.

Over the 2000-2018 period the estimate global coverage of the first dose of the measles vaccine increased from 72 per cent to 86 per cent.

But more needs to be done to get populations around the world to at least 95 per cent immunisation coverage, the agencies said.

“We really have the magic bullet here,” said Robert Linkins, a CDC expert on global immunisation. “The struggle really is to ensure that people get the vaccine.”

In Samoa, where more than 4200 people have been sickened with measles, just 13 per cent of the population had both doses of the measles’ vaccine last year, according to WHO estimates.

The rate is one of the worst in the Pacific region, and was exacerbated by the deaths of two infants last year after nurses in Samoa administered an incorrectly-mixed measles vaccine.

In the fallout, the measles vaccine was suspended for three months and there was a widespread loss of public trust in vaccines. The nurses have since been jailed.

Dr Linkins said Samoa was “clearly at risk of a measles outbreak” due to its low immunisation rates.

“62 deaths in Samoa – completely, completely preventable and it is tragic,” he said.

The rise in the national death to 62 came as the government this week shut down the entire nation on Wednesday in an attempt to deliver a decisive blow to the epidemic which has ravaged Samoa for nearly two months.

The two new deaths were both infants – one aged six to 11 months of age and one between one and four years of age, an official update from the National Emergency Operations Centre on Thursday revealed.

A total of 172 people are currently receiving in-patient treatment across the nation’s hospitals – this includes 19 children in critical condition, three pregnant women and one new mother.

- Samoa Observer