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		</div><p>Samoa has begun a two-day shutdown as the government tries to curb a measles epidemic that has killed 62 people.</p>
<p>The government told most public and private workers to stay at home on Thursday and Friday and shut down roads to non-essential vehicles as teams began going door to door to administer vaccines.</p>
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<p>Families in the Pacific island nation were asked to hang red flags from their houses if they needed to be vaccinated.</p>
<figure id="attachment_145626" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-145626" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-145626" src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/39C3B929-3B38-4780-9CF0-C70387726248.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="366" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-145626" class="wp-caption-text">People gather outside a health emergency operation centre</figcaption></figure>
<p>Most of those who have died from the virus are young, with 54 deaths among children aged four or younger.</p>
<p>The Samoa Observer newspaper said the normally bustling capital Apia was a ghost town on Thursday, with only birds nesting in the rooftops and stray dogs roaming the streets.</p>
<p>Prime minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told reporters the vaccine drive was unprecedented in the nation’s history.</p>
<p>“They seem to take a kind of lackadaisical attitude to all the warnings that we had issued through the television and also through the radio,” he said.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Latest update: 4,217 measles cases have been reported since the outbreak with 165 recorded in the last 24 hours. To date, 62 measles related deaths have been recorded. </p>
<p>VACCINATION UPDATE: Graphic uploaded below &#8211; as of 4 December 2019. <a href="https://t.co/6ESetgwEQR">pic.twitter.com/6ESetgwEQR</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Government of Samoa (@samoagovt) <a href="https://twitter.com/samoagovt/status/1202335691310391296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
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<p>Another challenge, he said, was that others had been seeking help from traditional healers, who had been successfully treating tropical diseases in Samoa for some 4,000 years.</p>
<p>“Some of our people pay a visit to traditional healers thinking that measles is a typical tropical disease, which it is not,” the prime minister said.</p>
<p>Samoan authorities believe the virus was first spread by a traveller from New Zealand.</p>
<p>The nation declared a national emergency last month and mandated that all 200,000 people get vaccinated.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">In response to the current measles outbreak, the <a href="https://twitter.com/samoagovt?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@samoagovt</a> will be undertaking a ‘Door to door Mass Vaccination Campaign’ on Thursday 5th and Friday 6th December, 2019 from 7am to 5pm throughout the whole country.</p>
<p>Read full notice at <a href="https://t.co/8OUn9cD33D">https://t.co/8OUn9cD33D</a> <a href="https://t.co/cjVBfaeumu">pic.twitter.com/cjVBfaeumu</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Government of Samoa (@samoagovt) <a href="https://twitter.com/samoagovt/status/1201960839986630656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
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<p>The government has also closed all schools and banned children from public gatherings.</p>
<p>According to the government, more than 4,000 people have contracted the disease since the outbreak began and 172 people remain in hospitals, including 19 children in critical condition.</p>
<p>Figures from the World Health Organisation and Unicef indicate that fewer than 30% of Samoan infants were immunised last year.</p>
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<p>This low rate was exacerbated by a medical mishap that killed two babies who were administered a vaccine that had been incorrectly mixed, causing wider delays and distrust in the vaccination program.</p>
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