{"id":41810,"date":"2019-12-04T04:22:41","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T04:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41810"},"modified":"2019-12-04T04:22:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T04:22:41","slug":"unvaccinated-to-show-red-flags-as-samoa-battles-measles-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=41810","title":{"rendered":"Unvaccinated to show red flags as Samoa battles measles epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Authorities in Samoa<\/a>\u00a0have asked unvaccinated families to display a red flag outside their homes on Wednesday to help a mass immunisation drive aimed at halting a measles epidemic that has killed at least 60 people, most of them children.<\/p>\n

The tiny Pacific nation of 200,000 will grind to a halt on Thursday and Friday as non-essential government services close to enable public servants to help with the vaccination campaign.<\/p>\n

More:<\/h4>\n

Over the two days, teams will go door-to-door administering vaccines in a desperate bid to raise the low immunity levels in Samoa that have fuelled the epidemic.<\/p>\n

Immunisation is compulsory under a state of emergency imposed last month and officials asked unvaccinated families to identify themselves.<\/p>\n

“The public is hereby advised to tie a red cloth or red flag in front of their houses and near the road to indicate that family members have not been vaccinated,” a public advisory said.<\/p>\n

“The red mark makes it easier for the teams to identify households for vaccinations.”<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington, reporting from the Samoa capital Apia, said that it seemed the government was changing its strategy in dealing with the epidemic, as the death toll continued to rise.<\/p>\n

While most of the infections are contained in urban areas, health officials will fan out across the country to determine which areas still need more attention, Washington said.<\/p>\n

Official data released on Wednesday put the death toll from the outbreak at 60, up five from the previous day.<\/p>\n

Most of the dead are children, with 52 of them aged four or under.<\/p>\n

Infection rates continued to climb this week, with 171 new cases in 24 hours, bringing the national total to 4,052, according to the latest report on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Across #Samoa<\/a>, people queue for the measles vaccine – 60 people have died (most of them children under 4) since the outbreak began in October. #SamoaMeasles<\/a> @AJEnglish<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/lL9wkOWJbH<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jessica Washington (@JesWashington) December 4, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As infections rise in Samoa, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a “slide back” in global efforts to eliminate the disease.<\/p>\n

The organisation’s medical officer for the western Pacific, Jose Hagan, said it was a grim reminder of the danger posed by the disease.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Unfortunately the case (to) fatality rate of measles is much higher than people realise,” he told Radio New Zealand.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is quite a severe disease and we just aren’t used to seeing it, so it comes as quite a surprise when we see how fatal it can be.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Misinformation on vaccines<\/span><\/h2>\n

He said the death rate in Samoa was less than 2 percent but had been known to reach 5 percent in developing countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hagen said increased access to measles vaccines was estimated to have saved 21 million lives over the past 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Measles\"<\/div>\n

Misinformation about vaccines has fuelled the re-emergence of measles, a highly infectious and deadly disease [File: Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“But we are starting to have a slide back and there are outbreaks happening all over the world in all WHO regions and it’s leading to the virus being exported through international travel,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cases have skyrocketed in Europe<\/a>, leading to Britain, Greece<\/a>, the Czech Republic and Albania all losing their measles-free status in August.<\/p>\n

The United States<\/a> narrowly maintained its “measles eliminated” status a few months later, despite experiencing its worst outbreak since 1992.<\/p>\n

The WHO has pointed to various reasons for declining immunisation rates including lack of access to healthcare and complacency about the need to vaccinate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Misinformation about immunisation from anti-vaccine campaigners has also driven the spread of the disease, according to the WHO.<\/span><\/p>\n

Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi this week said vaccination was the only answer to the epidemic, and\u00a0<\/span>has broadened its vaccination programme in recent weeks to include the entire population.<\/p>\n

Samoa has received assistance from a number of countries including Australia<\/a>, New Zealand, China, Japan<\/a> and the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities in Samoa\u00a0have asked unvaccinated families to display a red flag outside their homes on Wednesday to help a mass immunisation drive aimed at halting a measles epidemic that has killed at least 60 people, most of them children. The tiny Pacific nation of 200,000 will grind to a halt on Thursday and Friday as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":41811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}