After months of declaring the State of Emergency, Samoa finally lifted it off, replacing it with State of Recovery amid the measles outbreak. (Image via ABC News - Go.com)

Samoa lifts measles state of emergency

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Medical and Health
Dec 29, 2019
5350
In a special cabinet meeting held on Sunday, Samoa lifted off the state of emergency, a condition that allows Samoa to take whatever measures to contain the virus such as closing schools and restricting travel, due to the measles outbreak.

No fatality due to measles was detected in the past four days. The death toll due to the epidemic remains at 81. However, there were 46 measles cases in the hospital, nine of which are critically-ill children; another is a pregnant woman. About 21 new measles cases were recorded in the last 24 hours.

The Samoan Cabinet unanimously agreed to the cancellations of the State of Emergency. In exchange, they approved the commencement of the State of Recovery for Samoa.

For the State of Recovery, the Cabinet ordered Samoa’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prepare the Recovery Plan no later than two weeks to be presented for Cabinet’s consideration.

Furthermore, the Cabinet also put Health Emergency Operation Center in place to continue the works done by the National Emergency Operation Center during the crisis.

Last but not least, Public Appeal supported by the United Nations (U.N) will work closely together with the U.N’s Resident Coordinator.

Since its outbreak, more than 5,600 measles cases were reported to the Disease Surveillance Team. More than 1,800 were admitted to the hospital, and from that number, about 1,700 had gone home.

As per 27 December 2019, about 95 percent of Samoan people had been vaccinated for measles.

Source: https://bit.ly/2EYqFbw

Medical , Politics , Outbreak , Prevention , Mitigation , Treatment , Vaccination , Measles , Samoa