The Director General of Health is confident that the country will not go through another major health crisis if the measles outbreak in American Samoa reaches the country.

In response to questions from this newspaper on Thursday, Aiono Dr. Alec Ekeroma did not hesitate to admit that it is likely it will reach Samoa any time sooner. However, he is confident that if measles reach Samoa, what happened in 2019 will not be repeated when 81 lives of mostly infants were lost.

“It’s now closer to us,” Aiono said. “We cannot say it will not reach Samoa. Just like what happened with COVID-19, we were so happy that it did not reach our shores for two years, but it did.

“We are concerned with the outbreak in American Samoa because measles can also spread very fast. A state of emergency has been declared in American Samoa and that’s why we had amended the travel advisory for people traveling from American Samoa.

“This means that you will need to provide some form of confirmation that you have been vaccinated before boarding the plane.”

Speaking about the prevention strategy the Ministry of Health (M.O.H.) is pushing, Aiono said they are continuing to get children vaccinated.

“It’s been five weeks since we started rolling out our vaccination campaign in the community. The numbers and figures from our team are looking nice so far.

“The vaccination coverage in Savai’i is great and we continue to ask parents and guardians to assist our nurses by bringing in your children to get vaccinated.

“There are a lot of children from Leulumoega to Apia we are trying to bring in so they can get vaccinated. But we want our children to get vaccinated.”

When asked whether the Ministry is confident in its preparations thus far, Aiono replied saying “Yes”.

“Well, I’m confident so far, that what happened in 2019 will not happen again because in 2018 only 25 per cent of our children’s population got vaccinated. However, this time around, our vaccinated coverage has increased with 90 per cent for those who completed MMR 1, and over 60 per cent for those who have completed their MMR 2 shots.

“So we are confident that we will not face what we went through in 2019 if the measles reaches our shore.”

The Department of Health in American Samoa declared the measles outbreak on 19 April 2023. All schools in the American territory have been shut down.