Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi has praised Thursday's vaccination drive and says his government was doing all it can, but the amount of vaccinations is still far from the government's goal.
About 6000 vaccines are expected to have been administered by the end of Thursday in Samoa, which is in lockdown from 7am to 5pm, with most people ordered to stay at home.
The national shut-down continues on Friday, for more measles vaccines to be administered.
"If you did the same tomorrow it would be 12,000 in two days – a far cry from the 90 percent take-up the Prime Minister wanted," Checkpoint reporter in Apia Alex Perrottet said.
"He started talking [of] weeks rather than days," to get most of the population vaccinated for measles, Perrottet said.
The Prime Minister said there were no more national shut-downs planned after Friday, but he is not ruling it out.
Most of the measles-related deaths have been in Samoa's capital city, Apia.
"The Prime Minister did say again tonight that tomorrow they will focus more on the remote areas, but keeping in mind that [Apia] is the epicentre and this is where today's focus was."
Tuilaepa said on Thursday that the measles spread came to Samoa from New Zealand.
