Evaluation: In June 2019, Robert F. Kennedy Jr visited Samoa as a visitor of native anti-vaccine activists, and reportedly discouraged mother and father from vaccinating their infants. Because the Pacific nation was hit by a measles outbreak a couple of months later, Kennedy wrote to the Samoan Prime Minister suggesting the deaths is perhaps “casualties of the vaccine”. Native activists say he suggested them to make use of excessive doses of Nutritional vitamins A and C, as a substitute of standard medicines, in the course of the outbreak.
Over a interval of two and a half months, the Samoan inhabitants of fewer than 200,000 individuals suffered 5700 measles instances; 83 individuals died, most of them infants and toddlers. Samoa’s authorities was overwhelmed and pleaded for worldwide assist; 18 emergency medical groups from around the globe deployed to Samoa underneath the coordination of the World Well being Group (WHO), bringing greater than 550 further medical, public well being and logistics personnel to the nation’s measles response.
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