Samoan authorities have arrested a prominent anti-vaccination activist amid an outbreak that has killed at least 63 people, most of them children.
Edwin Tamasese has been charged with “incitement against a government order,” according to the BBC.
Government officials say anti-vaccination advocates such as Tamasese have complicated their sweeping efforts to turn the tide on the highly contagious disease that has sickened more than 4,300 people on the independent Pacific islands.
The government has declared a state of emergency and ordered mandatory vaccinations. It shut schools indefinitely. This week, it launched a door-to-door mass vaccination campaign, asking families to pin a piece of red cloth on their homes if they haven’t been vaccinated.
On Thursday and Friday, the government closed all of its offices except public utilities, so that civil servants could focus on the campaign. Officials say more than 20,000 people have received vaccines.