In the small island country of Samoa, lives have been forever altered by an outbreak of the disease in 2019 that caused at least 83 deaths and 1,867 hospitalisations, mostly of babies and young children. Thousands more fell sick. The preventable illness was able to spread through the small, closely knit population of about 200,000 due to record low vaccination rates – stemming from a medical vaccination error, the Samoan government’s public health mismanagement, and fuelled by anti-vaccination sentiment, including by Donald Trump’s pick to lead the US health department, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
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Now, five years on from an epidemic that has traumatised a generation, Samoan health officials are among those sounding alarm over the nomination of Kennedy as US health secretary.

“We cannot and should not stay silent. We know what this appointment means. It means more platforms for anti-vaxxers and less funding for vaccines and health programmes,” Aiono Prof Alec Ekeroma, Samoa’s director general of health, told the Guardian.

“It must be treated as a threat to our health security.”