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Samoa Shuts Down in Unprecedented Battle Against Measles
Samoa shuts down in unprecedented battle against measles
Samoa began a two-day shutdown on Thursday as authorities embarked on an unprecedented mass vaccination campaign to contain a deadly outbreak of measles that has killed 62 people, mostly small children, in the Pacific island nation.
Officials suspended non-essential government services to allow civil servants to support the vaccination drive, and ordered all businesses to close. Inter-island ferry services were also cancelled.
"No one is being permitted to drive unless they are going to hospital or they have special permission," Al Jazeera's Jessica Washington said from the capital, Apia. Behind her wide streets were all but empty of people and cars.
"The ban is to make it as simple as possible for the medical teams to travel throughout Samoa and access as many families as possible."
Red Flags To Mark Homes Of Unvaccinated In Samoa, Officials Say
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
People who have not been vaccinated against the measles virus should mark their homes with red flags, Samoan officials announced Tuesday.
The outbreak has flourished after the vaccination rate of infants plunged to an estimated 31 percent last year. Health officials linked the drop in vaccination to the tragic deaths of two infants, who were given measles vaccines tainted with fatal doses of muscle relaxant. Two nurses were convicted in the cases and sentenced to five years in prison. Despite the convictions, anti-vaccine advocates have used the cases to drum up fear of vaccines.
As the outbreak took off last month, the Samoan government declared a state of emergency. It has closed schools, banned children from public gatherings, and begun a mass vaccination campaign. Samoa has since vaccinated over 58,000 people.
NB: The population of Samoa is just under 200,000 people.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @05:08AM (3 children)
That would give them autism.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 06 2019, @08:37AM (2 children)
I don't have strong feelings on the matter, beyond thinking mass vaccination is generally a good thing.
Autism, ADHD, allergies, and asthma have become remarkably more prevalent than they've ever been in the United States. It stands to reason that something is behind it. For example, we have good evidence that childhood obesity and diabetes track back to the debate in the 70's and early 80's about which was worse for you, fat or sugar. Sugar won, and all products and foodstuffs became low-fat, high in sugar. Now everyone is suffering the consequences. So I wonder if we're doing the same thing to ourselves with regard to aforementioned maladies.
The trouble is, it took so long to figure out the fat vs. sugar causality because companies and their surrogates in government worked so hard to bamboozle the public. They bought off researchers in the field with grant money and think tanks with donations. They have actively short-circuited the subject matter experts who should be studying and examining threats to public health.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @03:46PM
You also don't even necessarily need maliciousness.
The problem with macro-scale things, especially as society is changing so radically fast is that you really can find compelling arguments to the contrary. For instance the past 3 decades have seen genetically engineered products in the US become ubiquitous, the rise of the internet, super-hyper-exponential usage of psychotropics, a substantial decline in IQ in developed nations (even controlling for e.g. immigration), sharp declines in fertility in most places, and a million other factors and effects. And then take things like the recent discovery [sky.com] that psychotropics in fish can cause multi-generational effects that don't cause any significant impact on the individual level, yet cause potentially catastrophic effects on a population level.
The world was a much simpler time when our only extravagances were some insecticide, cigarettes, and leaded fuel. Part of the reason I think people should give the prevalent views sufficient weighting, but people should do what they think is right. The odds of us not effectively poisoning ourselves, one way or the other, right now are probably very close to 0.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday December 06 2019, @04:13PM
The culprit for obesity was the use of corn sugars as sweeteners. Cheaper isn't necessarily better. We're not cows or pigs, the hormones that govern our appetite are disrupted by corn-based sugar. But the farm lobby can continue producing it cheaper because of massive subsidies.
The increase in fine particulates in the atmosphere, and spending more time indoors, are both probably causes of the increase in asthma. All our furniture continuously out-gases volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), as does the paint covering our walls, the various floor coverings, and that new car smell.
It was only after the Apollo 1 fire that engineers figured out the lunar module would have outgassed enough toxic material that it could have killed the astronauts, and materials were engineered to limit outgassing.
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