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FIFTEEN YOUNG CHILDREN have died in a botched measles vaccination campaign that saw people as young as 12 years old administering the vaccines, South Sudan’s government announced today.
The United Nations said the children died of “severe sepsis/toxicity” from the contaminated vaccine, and the health ministry blamed the deaths on human error.
One syringe was used for all the children during the four-day campaign, and the vaccine was stored without refrigeration the entire time.
Measles is yet another challenge facing the desperately poor East African country that already has been devastated by more than three years of civil war and a recently declared famine, as well as a cholera outbreak.
The government said all of the children who died were under the age of 5. It is setting up a commission to determine who is responsible and whether victims’ families will be compensated.
The measles vaccination campaign is targeting more than 2 million children across the country. About 300 children were targeted in the area where the children’s deaths occurred.
The children died in the rural town of Kapoeta in early May. Another 32 children suffered fever, vomiting and diarrhea but recovered, a joint statement by the World Health Organization and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said.
Abdulmumini Usman, the South Sudan country director for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press earlier this week that even after the organisation became aware of the deaths, the measles campaign continued across the country except in Kapoeta.
“This campaign is lifesaving,” Usman said.
WHO provides some training to South Sudan’s health officials and the UN children’s agency provides the vaccines to the government. It was not immediately clear whether any UN officials were present at the time of the botched vaccinations.
The joint statement by WHO and UNICEF said the vaccination team involved in the deaths was “neither qualified nor trained.” It called the deaths a “tragic event.”
Dr. Samson Baba, an immunisation official in the ministry of health, refused to comment on the deaths earlier this week, instead demanding the source of the information.
South Sudan’s government also said today that vaccinations are not being denied to any part of the country, including those held by opposition forces.
The civil war has killed tens of thousands and sent more than 1.8 million people fleeing the country, creating the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis.
In 2016, South Sudan had at least 2,294 measles cases and 28 people died, according to UN data. So far this year, at least one person has died and 665 people have been infected.
Today’s UN statement said the risk of measles in the country remains “extremely high”.
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“One syringe was used for all the children during the four-day campaign”
I feel some donating coming on to assuage my first world guilt……… articles like this remind me of how lucky the lottery of birth has been for us.
This will be used as “proof” by anti-vaxxers that vaccination kills! Thanks a bunch South Sudan with the Child Doctors
I wonder are these the new thiomersal free vaccines.
@John B: Oh ffs the antivax tinfoil loonies are up again.
@CeannairBlue: it’s still hard to believe that people like him still insist on posting whimsical comments based on Facebook posts and illegitimate information on the net. YouTube and Facebook should not be your first port of call for scientific data regarding such important issues.
@John B: You made this poor taste comment on a article describing the deaths of 15 babies………. Did that even register with you or did you see “Sudan” and immediately lose compassion?
@John B: oh please go and watch your chemtrails and leave the thinking to others
@Martin Byrne: the lot of you are idiots. I am pro vaccine. My point is this if any of you had brains. Thiomersal is a preservative. Because of antivaccers, most vaccines are thiomersal free. In the first world where we have single use vials, not having the preservative thiomersal is no big deal, but in the third world where single dose vials are too expensive, they use multi dose vials of vaccine. That is where a good preservative like thiomersal (which is harmless) is important. If these multi dose vials are thiomersal free because of the anti vaccine morons then in my mind they are responsible for or at least have contributed to these deaths.
@John B: So we were supposed to be able to extrapolate your follow up paragraph from “I wonder are these the new thiomersal free vaccines.”
Guess we are all “idiots” than so.
@Tricia Golden: I think that was his expectation.
@Tricia Golden: not at all, nor did I expect people to jump to the opposite conclusion and behave like morons. What I foolishly hoped that someone might have been able to answer the question, I could not find the answer myself in the article or online.
We are living in a mad world. 15 kids die because of a lack of trained medical personnel in a world where $100billion transactions take place for would be wars.
Oh look …. I know what a ” thiomersal free vaccine ” is …. good man there John B .
By the way it is spelt THIOMEROSAL .
@Paul Connell: thanks for trying to correct my spelling and giving an incorrect spelling lol. Check the WHO website.
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