APIA, Samoa (NBC) – At least 25 people, 24 of them children, have died from a measles epidemic that’s sweeping through Samoa. Health professionals said it’s only getting worse.
Dr. Scott Wilson works in Samoa with a New Zealand medical assistant team. He said, “These hospitals are not designed to deal with this and I think the minute you get hospitals running at 200 and 300 percent capacity, I think it speaks for itself. It’s incredibly serious.”
More than 140 new cases were confirmed Monday. There are 20 children who remain in intensive care.
Dr. Wilson said, “There have been a few tears. I think we have admitted, at times, multiple members of the same family. I think at one point, one family, we had five members of one family here.”
The first case surfaced last month and Samoa declared a state of emergency nine days ago. All schools were closed and children were banned from public gatherings.
One mother, Evelyn Laulu, said, “I got so scared. I prayed. And I think through the hands of the doctors, they worked miracles. And I’m so happy.”
All citizens were ordered to get vaccinated. Only two-thirds of the population had been vaccinated up to that time.
Two-thirds of all hospitalizations, 679 people, were for measles.
Samoa’s Director General of Health Leausa Take Naseri said, “Most of our admissions now are becoming very severe, unlike the status of the first few admissions.”
The government is investigating how hundreds of vaccines were taken and sold to people. Naseri said, “So, I don’t know how they are getting it. So it has come from something that is not proper. So there is an investigation going on.”
The World Health Organization said immunization rates among Samoan infants fell from 70 percent in 2013 to under 30 percent last year.
American Samoa, which has declared a public health emergency, is requiring that travelers from Samoa and Tonga prove they have been vaccinated or are immune from measles before being allowed into the U.S. territory.
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