Samoans question how a controllable virus has devastated the nation.

‘We owe it to the children of Samoa that have passed on and their loved ones whom to this day are in mourning. There has to be an investigation as to how the measles came into the country.’

As Samoa’s death toll from measles continues to rise, people are asking why it is the only Pacific country to be reeling from what is a controllable virus.

SAMOA – New state of emergency orders have been declared in Samoa as it tries to contain the deadly measles epidemic.

The outbreak of the virus has killed 55 people, most aged under four, since it began in October.

On Tuesday the government announced all non-essential domestic travel on the roads would be banned on Thursday and Friday, as vaccination units go mobile across the islands.

People are being told to stay at home and wait for the mobile units to arrive at their villages.

During the closure period no vehicle will be permitted on the road unless it is a vehicle belonging to an exempt service from the public sector or a vehicle being used to seek medical assistance from a medical facility.

The government had already announced that nearly all public services and offices would shut down on those two days so state resources could be focused on stopping the disease spreading.

As Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi and his government work hard to exert leadership in the nation’s time of crisis, critics are starting to ask difficult questions.

Samoa First Party leader, Unasa Iuni Sapolu, said the government must be held responsible for the country’s low immunisation rates.

Just 13 per cent of Samoa’s population had both doses of the measles vaccine last year, according to the World Health Organisation and the UN children’s agency UNICEF.

The rates are starkly lower than its Pacific neighbours, most of which have vaccination coverage near 100 per cent.

Unasa said the epidemic was preventable and there must be an inquiry into how immunisation rates fell so low in Samoa.

“Was it done knowingly? Why was there a lapse in delivering vaccinations?”

Unasa said Samoa’s government had allowed a storm of misinformation to hurt public trust in vaccinations, including fears over the safety of measles’ vaccines after the deaths of two babies who were given wrongly mixed doses of the vaccine.

She likened the measles epidemic to the 1918 influenza pandemic, in which the disease’s arrival on board a New Zealand ship killed about 8500 people - a fifth of Samoa’s population at the time.

“Did we learn from that? Well, how many years later, it’s happening again.”

Another opposition MP, Salega Member of Parliament Olo Fiti Vaai, has admitted that all Samoa’s politicians are to blame.

“We failed you, Samoa. The three branches of government have failed miserably. I have failed and I apologise on behalf of parliament for what has occurred,” Olo told the Samoa Observer.

“I failed in doing my part to assist with the prevention and in the end, the epidemic has taken the lives of our children.”

The MP has called on the government to launch a special commission of inquiry to find the core of the problem.

“We owe it to the children of Samoa that have passed on and their loved ones whom to this day are in mourning.

“There has to be an investigation as to where the lapse is and how the measles came into the country.”

-PNC