- Oct 17, 2011
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The government of Samoa will shut down for two days this week while officials try to curb a deadly measles outbreak that has sickened 3,728 and killed 53—48 of whom were children ages 0 to 4 years old.
The Pacific island nation of around 200,000 first declared an outbreak of measles on October 16. The highly contagious viral infection spread rapidly, and officials declared a state of emergency by mid-November. The outbreak has continued to flare, however. On Sunday, the government reported that there had been 198 new measles cases in the last 24 hours alone.
The World Health Organization and UNICEF estimated that Samoa’s measles vaccination rate for infants was just 31% in 2018. That’s down from about 60% to 70% in earlier years and a high of 90% in 2013.
The drop may be partly explained by the tragic deaths of two infants in July 2018, according to the WHO. The infants died on the same day at the same hospital, shortly after they had each received what was supposed to be an MMR vaccine (which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella).
While antivaxxers blamed vaccines for these deaths, the true cause was a lethal error by two nurses, who were both sentenced to 5 years in prison.
anti-vaccination groups pounced on the circumstances. Most notably, the deaths were picked up by the Children’s Health Defense, run by the prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As The Washington Post noted, Kennedy’s organization spent months highlighting the deaths on Facebook while questioning the safety of the MMR vaccines. But the organization did not correct the posts or update its audience with information regarding the nurses’ error and convictions.
Hey Hey RFK
How many kids did you kill today?
The government of Samoa will shut down for two days this week while officials try to curb a deadly measles outbreak that has sickened 3,728 and killed 53—48 of whom were children ages 0 to 4 years old.
The Pacific island nation of around 200,000 first declared an outbreak of measles on October 16. The highly contagious viral infection spread rapidly, and officials declared a state of emergency by mid-November. The outbreak has continued to flare, however. On Sunday, the government reported that there had been 198 new measles cases in the last 24 hours alone.
The World Health Organization and UNICEF estimated that Samoa’s measles vaccination rate for infants was just 31% in 2018. That’s down from about 60% to 70% in earlier years and a high of 90% in 2013.
The drop may be partly explained by the tragic deaths of two infants in July 2018, according to the WHO. The infants died on the same day at the same hospital, shortly after they had each received what was supposed to be an MMR vaccine (which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella).
While antivaxxers blamed vaccines for these deaths, the true cause was a lethal error by two nurses, who were both sentenced to 5 years in prison.
anti-vaccination groups pounced on the circumstances. Most notably, the deaths were picked up by the Children’s Health Defense, run by the prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As The Washington Post noted, Kennedy’s organization spent months highlighting the deaths on Facebook while questioning the safety of the MMR vaccines. But the organization did not correct the posts or update its audience with information regarding the nurses’ error and convictions.
Hey Hey RFK
How many kids did you kill today?