SAMOA’S SEARCH
The streets of Apia were eerily quiet yesterday when reporter Florence Kerr and photographer Chris McKeen spoke to Samoans about the tragic measles crisis devastating the tiny island nation.
They cradled their baby boy till he took his last breath. Peter von Heiderbrandt was 14 months old, one month shy of getting his MMR vaccine, when he passed away after contracting measles. His was the first death in the measles crisis which has shaken the island paradise of Samoa to its core.
Peter died on Samoa’s national children’s holiday, known as White Sunday.
At their home in the village of Vaigaga, just 15 minutes out of Apia, the pain is evident among those who loved him the most.
Mum Lanuola describes her son as a happy child who was always in amongst it with his cousins.
That was until the day he got sick.
That’s how they knew something was wrong. His parents repeatedly tried to get him admitted to hospital, but were turned away with antibiotics and Panadol.
‘‘He had a high fever, runny nose, like the flu. This was before anyone knew about the measles,’’ father Jordan says.
‘‘Then we took him to my wife’s cousin’s house, who is the head of paediatrics, and he took one look at him and wrote us a note to take to the hospital. He was admitted straight away.’’
At first, he responded to treatment. ‘‘It looked like he was going to get better,’’ says Jordan.
‘‘On Wednesday he started eating a little bit and drinking. Then on Sunday . . . The doctors tried everything and then they told us there was nothing more they could do. So we held him.’’
At 4pm on October 13, Peter took his last breath.
His brother and two sisters both received their vaccinations at 15 months - the difference a month could have meant to his parents.
On the streets of Apia, a mother covers her baby with a shawl, hiding him from sight as she walks past the Mormon Church.
It’s the first baby we’ve sighted on the streets of Upolu, Samoa’s most populous island, all day.
The Government of Samoa has implemented a crisis strategy banning children under 19 from attending public gatherings.
The streets of the capital are virtually empty. It’s a Saturday afternoon, and the usually teeming alleyways are eerily quiet.
The normally bustling central market feels empty.
Yesterday came the grim news that two more babies had died, bringing the death toll to
44; the overwhelming majority have been children under four.
Today, churches on the devoutly Christian nation will join in prayer to ask that no more children die.
But more grief might lie ahead.
Red Cross nurse Karen Page, a veteran of previous humanitarian disasters such as the ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, says the outbreak will get worse before it gets better.
‘‘There’s a lot of very sick people in hospital and some of them aren’t going to survive.’’
Many in the community trace the current epidemic back to the deaths of two babies on July 6 last year in the hospital at Tuasivi after nurses mixed the wrong liquid with MMR vaccines.
One-year-old boy Lannah Samuelu and Lameko Siu, a oneyear-old girl, died after their MMR vaccine was incorrectly mixed with an expired anaesthetic.
Nurses Luse Emo Tauvale and Leutogi Te’o pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to five years in prison.
The deaths provoked widespread fear and confusion among parents – and a great deal of mistrust of vaccinations.
Some prominent Samoans, such as former rugby international Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu, complained that the vaccines being produced in India were of an inferior standard to those available in countries such as New Zealand.
Immunisation rates among infants plummeted from around 60 per cent in 2017 to less than 40 per cent.
‘‘People were really scared to get their children vaccinated after the babies died last year,’’ Apia resident Lalovi Tagaloa told us yesterday.
‘‘No-one knows what really happened with the nurses. We just know they went to jail and they did something to the vaccine but no-one knows what they did.’’
Lavoli’s wife Line said through her surgical mask that the deaths of the two babies last year had spread panic.
‘‘The babies’ deaths just scared everyone from getting (vaccinated). We don’t really know what happened.’’
At the markets in central Apia, Faatali Tuilagi is the only one in her family without a mask. Her son Salvation, 8, daughter Alofagia and husband Sione feel more comfortable covered up.
Her children were vaccinated in early November after the crisis hit epidemic levels. It takes two weeks for the vaccine to take effect.
Asked why she didn’t have her children vaccinated when they were babies, Tuilagi says she had heard the vaccine was substandard.
‘‘I had been hearing different things about the immunisation not being very good for the children,’’ she says.
‘‘Then when the babies died, from the main island, myself and families didn’t want to get our kids vaccine because of what happened.’’
She says she changed her mind for her children’s safety when the measles hit epidemic levels.
‘‘They have it everywhere now and it’s good for the kids to get it. I hope it’s safe.’’
The state of emergency has seen schools closed for the past month.
It’s also affecting university students like Rosie Mulipola, she is in her second year of a fouryear teaching degree at the National University of Samoa.
She was halfway through her exams when the university was shut down.
‘‘I was looking forward to finishing my exams before Christmas,’’ the 22-year-old said. ‘‘The Government said the state of emergency might be lifted on December 15, if that happens our exams will resume on December 16.’’
Dr Helen Petousis-Harris, vaccinologist and senior lecturer at Auckland University, rejected claims the Indian-made vaccines were substandard.
‘‘The MMR vaccine used in Samoa is from the Serum Institute of India. The vaccine is what is called pre-qualified by the World Health Organisation which means the manufacturing facility, the process, and the product are all of exceptional
quality and conform to very tight specifications.
‘‘This is not an inferior vaccine. There are four manufacturers that the World Health Organisation has prequalified for MMR, including the Serum Institute of India. The vaccine used in Samoa is purchased by Unicef.’’
Siniva Cruickshank, from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Pacific Nurses section, said Samoa became a fertile ground for conspiracy theories to flourish in the days and weeks after last year’s deadly immunisations.
‘‘I heard and I read that antiimmunisation people from Australia were in the country and doing their promotions straight after that happened and of course that would raise anxiety in the community.’’
In the weeks preceding the outbreak, vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nephew of former US president JFK, inexplicably showed up on the island nation to spread his antivaxx message.
There he met up with Taylor Winterstein – wife of rugby league player Frank Winterstein
‘People were really scared to get their children vaccinated after the babies died last year. ’ LALOVI TAGALOA
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– who has gained some notoriety in Australia for her anti-vaxx views.
Yesterday Samoan prime minister Tuilaepa Dr Sa’ilele Malielegaoi called for those spreading anti-vaxx messages to be jailed.
‘‘People are being misled with claims that there are traditional medicines that can cure it,’’ he said during a weekly radio address.
‘‘The police should find them and put them in Tanumalala Prison to teach them a lesson.’’
In this febrile atmosphere, socalled faith healers have been charging to sprinkle measlesinfected patients with ‘‘holy water’’.
Fritz Alai’asa, who is running a clinic in Vaivase-Tai, in Apia, attacked New Zealand media who confronted him over his healing claims, and has since been shut down by authorities.
The island is no stranger to loss of life on an epic scale. In 1918, 8500 people died when the influenza epidemic arrived on its shores aboard boats from New Zealand. Nearly a quarter of the population perished. In 2009, 3000 were left homeless by a tsunami which carved a path of destruction across the Pacific.
Today the devoutly religious nation will hold church services to mourn the dead.
The global community of Anglican churchgoers are being encouraged to lend their prayers to the cause.
But the response will take cold hard currency as well.
On Friday, Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced the Government was sending 100,000 doses of measles vaccines to Samoa.
And yesterday, the United
States pledged $290,000 in aid. The Red Cross are among the charities on the ground, and are urging people to donate money, rather than items.
In the six weeks since Peter von Heiderbrandt’s death, his parents and siblings have spent every evening at his grave.
‘‘Since his death it has been unreal,’’ says Lanuola.
His brother Lloyd, 4, asks his mum to bring Peter back out of the grave.
Jordan and Lanuola have a simple message for the doubters.
‘‘Just go and get the shot,’’ Jordan says. ‘‘I would encourage all parents to take their children to get immunised, if you don’t understand, ask a doctor.’’
For now, as the epidemic rages and more deaths are expected, the von Heiderbrandt family are still learning their new normal without their happy little boy.
‘‘It’s not the same and I don’t think it ever will be,’’ Lanuola says.