Samoa is a quiet tourist spot at 4,300 km east of Australia's Sydney. Out of its small population of 200,000, more than 3,000 are now infected by measles. It has also caused the death of 48 children in the last six weeks. It is due to the loss of faith of the Samoa people on their government to vaccinate their children for measles.
They lost faith after two nurses wrongly mixed MMR injections with expired muscle-relaxing anesthetic for water and killed two children. Since then, the vaccination percentage dropped to 31% from 87 %. With this year's measles havoc across the globe, it also affected New Zealand's 2,000 people. But none died in there, but with huge Samoa Diaspora in New Zealand, it is now causing deaths in Samoa.
Take Naseri, Samoa's director-general of health is urging families who are affected by measles to come to the hospital first. He says that the people were desperate to seek other ways like traditional healers, and the government is not able to make them come to hospitals. They are all well informed, but not taking the right decision is his contention. With more than 200 people getting affected by this measles epidemic in Samoa is still spreading fast.