More New Zealand medical staff are due in Samoa today as the death toll continues to rise from a measles outbreak in the country.
Samoa declared a State of Emergency on Friday to deal with an epidemic, which so far has killed 16 people - many of them children. Yesterday the Samoan government reported a total of just over a thousand cases of measles.
Eighteen more vaccination nurses from New Zealand are arriving in Apia today to help which will bring the total number of New Zealand nurses working in Samoa to 30.
Freelance journalist in Apia, Maina Misa Foma'i Papalii says a number of factors have led to low immunistaion rates in Samoa.
Previously immunisation was handled locally by the villages' women's committee, but that has been done away with, requiring people to travel to the hospitals to get vaccinated, and there have been warnings against vaccines on social media after two babies died last year when vaccines were mixed incorrectly.
Ms Misa Foma'i Papalii told Kim Hill its a frightening situation.
