Samoa’s prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mataʻafa, has criticised Robert F Kennedy Jr’s views and the unfold of vaccine misinformation associated to the lethal 2019 measles outbreak that claimed the lives of no less than 83 folks, largely infants in her nation.
It comes as Kennedy, who’s president Donald Trump’s choose to steer the highest US well being company, confronted assaults in Senate affirmation hearings this week with Democratic lawmakers accusing him of masking up his anti-vaccine views.
Kennedy, who denies being anti-vaccine, visited Samoa in 2019, 4 months earlier than the measles outbreak was declared. Though it was not an official go to, he met with authorities representatives and anti-vaccine influencers, in what well being advocates and specialists declare was a disinformation marketing campaign that stoked mistrust in vaccines.
“If he’s the messenger for anti-vaxxers, as a pacesetter, I don’t agree with him,” Fiame instructed the Guardian in her first public feedback on Kennedy after the primary day of his affirmation hearings within the US.
Fiame mentioned she was shocked by his nomination given his anti-vaccination rhetoric. She added that she refused to consider that Kennedy’s and Trump’s sentiments mirror these held by most People.
The 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa was attributable to a harmful drop in vaccination charges that stemmed from a medical vaccination error in 2018 and was fuelled by anti-vaccination sentiment. The earlier Samoan authorities’s public well being mismanagement additionally contributed to the disaster.
By October 2019, vaccination charges had fallen to 31% – down from 84% 4 years beforehand, in keeping with WHO knowledge. The decline started after a 2018 medical error, the place two infants died as a result of nurses incorrectly administering vaccines blended with an expired muscle relaxant. Although the error was unrelated to vaccine security, anti-vaccine activists falsely blamed the MMR vaccine for the deaths.
Because of this, when measles entered Samoa in late 2019, the low immunity ranges allowed the illness to unfold quickly, resulting in no less than 83 deaths and over 5,700 circumstances, largely amongst infants and younger kids.
“The info stay that the 2 infants who died [in 2018] have been by way of human error of the nurses. All of the totally different actors, particularly anti-vax folks, acquired on board and advised that the vaccination was the trigger, which is full garbage,” Fiame mentioned.
“We now have a monitor report previous to that of excessive charges of vaccination for our youngsters, they usually have been protected. The info communicate for themselves,” Fiame instructed the Guardian. “It was unvaccinated kids who died.”
Whereas Kennedy denies his go to to Samoa in 2019 worsened the outbreak, well being officers argue that his anti-vaccine rhetoric fuelled public concern on the top of vaccine hesitancy in Samoa.
“His go to didn’t assist our trigger as we have been already coping with misinformation and hesitancy from the 2 deaths,” mentioned Luana Tui, a Samoan neighborhood well being employee who was a part of the vaccination drive throughout the measles pandemic.
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