Samoan Measles

an eery foreshadowing of COVID-19

In late 2019, disaster came to the beautiful-but-poor Pacific islands of Samoa. During the next three months, 83 people, mostly young children, reportedly died from measles. The island has a population of 205,000 with about 5,500 births per year. This is the timeline:¹

• March, 2018: Australia’s Pacific health security scoping mission evaluates island health policies and finds no major problems. Immunisation coverage was seen to be rising. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is mentioned several times as an item of concern, but it is emphasized that there is no data.

• July, 2018: Two babies died shortly after measles (MMR) vaccination. An investigation cleared the vaccine and blamed the nurses, one of whom later pled guilty to mixing “the vaccine powder with an expired anaesthetic” instead of sterilised water. A WHO report mentions “initial attempts to hide the vaccination error and blam[e] individuals rather than conducting systemic analyses”. Perhaps these attempts succeeded.

• July, 2018 to April, 2019: Samoa suspended the vaccination program, against WHO advice. The vaccination rate had already been dropping since 2013 and fell off a cliff in 2018. [MCV1 = Measles-containing-vaccine first-dose]

  

• May to September, 2019: “after the restart of the vaccination programme previously high coverage was not achieved for all vaccines” [Measles epidemic in Samoa and other Pacific islands, Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2020]

• October, 2019: Measles outbreak begins and first deaths occur.

• November 15, 2019: Samoa declares a sate of emergency. From The Guardian:
  
  “One local senior health expert who did not want to be named said that tragically many of the measles cases were probably contracted at hospitals and clinics when people went to get vaccinated in the early days after the outbreak was declared.”
  
  WHO immunisation specialist Hagan denied this, blaming late closure of schools for the continued spread:
  
  “Hagan says it is unlikely that people who attended clinics to be vaccinated themselves would have been infected, as the vaccine would have protected them, but that anyone who attended a clinic for other reasons, including parents taking their children to receive the vaccine, were at risk.”
  
  The UK NHS disagrees with Hagan that protection begins immediately: “Protection against measles, mumps and rubella starts to develop around 2 weeks after having the MMR vaccine.”

• November and December, 2019: Harsh lockdowns and forced vaccination of the entire population, foreshadowing worldwide COVID-19 policies. Holidays are cancelled.

• January 22, 2020: The WHO signals an end to the outbreak. “Samoa is now moving towards the recovery phase.”

  

Why the high death toll?

• Most deaths were due to “severe pneumonia, often complicated by multi-resistant bacterial infections” said a pediatrician on the ground.

• Samoan measles mortality of 41/100k population was 4 to 10 times higher than even 19th century Massachusetts, despite the intervening discovery of antibiotics and about 50% of children having been previously vaccinated.

• Even-poorer neighbor Papua New Guinea has a similarly low vaccination rate, yet their most recent measles outbreak in 2014/15 amounted to 4 deaths per 100k population, 1/10th the rate in Samoa.

• It struck me that the authors of the previously linked Lancet comment showed zero interest in the unusually high death rate.

Mainstream summary: Samoans foolishly became anti-vaxxers and bad things happened as a result. International doctors fixed the situation by vaccinating everyone. The death toll is left unexplained or considered not unusual.

Alternative summary: Populations that run afoul of the world health establishment will be coerced into getting their shots. Good luck finding pneumonia treatment when doctors who have been trained to ration antibiotics harden their hearts.

Or maybe doctors did give antibiotics, but something was wrong with the medicine. Vulnerability of pharmaceutical supply chains has been in the news. Even the triggering event — fatal injection of two babies — was caused by a flawed supply chain, whether at the stage of nurses mixing ingredients or elsewhere.

Possibly related: In 2017, one year before the measles saga, Samoa declared itself a Christian nation. In 2021, one year after measles ended, Samoa’s long-serving government fell. The new prime minister celebrates third gender people, inks deals with China, and criticizes the quality of Australian military equipment, while the former PM complains about election meddling.

Please feel free to share any relevant information, but keep comments on topic!

1. After this writing, I learned that Arkmedic had discussed the same outbreak. He points out that vaccinating people who were already sick with measles could have caused harm.