Vaccination coverage in Samoa plummeted from 58% in 2017 to 31% in 2018 because the Samoan government shut down its measles vaccination program from July 2018 to April 2019 after two infants in Samoa died within minutes of receiving the MMR vaccine. The drop in vaccination coverage cannot be mainly due to misinformation and mistrust among parents because suspending the country’s vaccination program for the remainder of 2018 and beyond invalidates these factors as explanations.

This false claim by UNICEF and the WHO is addressed in more detail here (also see Other Stories below).