Via the Samoa Observer: Australian doctor talks about measles struggle. Click or tap through for the full report and a video. Excerpt:
The leader of an Australian medical team, Dr. Dan Holmes, who has been helping Samoa to deal with the measles epidemic, has spoken about the struggles to contain a disease that has already claimed 33 Samoan lives.
Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Dr. Holmes said severe pneumonia has been the most prominent complication of measles in the young children suffering it. Dr. Holmes is the leader of the Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUS.M.A.T.).
From the beginning of the epidemic, the intensive care unit of the Tupua Tamasese Meaole Hospital has been at capacity, so much so that the Australian Government flew in an eight bed negative pressure tent unit to help.
Dr.Holmes arrived with the tent and the first team of medical professionals to help meet the urgent demand for intensive care, especially of children.
“The main complication is undoubtedly pneumonia,” said Dr. Holmes, who is the Clinical Team Leader of the unit.
“[Measles] affects the immune system so you are unable to fight as well as you normally would be, and on top of that the measles itself can damage the lungs. If you get a bacterial infection on top of that then it can cause a very severe pneumonia.”
The pneumonia caused by measles needs deeply complex treatment, Dr. Holmes said, including draining infections from the lungs and administering strong antibiotics through the child’s veins.
“That is a lot for a small child to take and it’s very difficult to sustain that for a long period of time.”
As well as pneumonia, other children have been suffering encephalitis as a result of measles, the inflammation of the brain which can cause seizures. It occurs when the brain becomes infected with the virus, or by something else that gets in while the immune system is damaged by the measles.
Measles can also cause long term damage in patients, but those impacts are not yet clear, Dr. Holmes said.
“There is undoubtedly a chance that there is a burden on those children who have had those very severe infections, that they will go on to have some more problems in the future.
“At this time we are really dealing with the acute pneumonia, trying to get them better from that and out of hospital.”
Dr. Holmes and his team will be leaving Samoa on Thursday and a new team arrived on Wednesday ready to replace them for the next two weeks.
The reinforcements come after the Australian team, alongside their Samoan colleagues, have been working between 14 and 16 hour days, both in the intensive care unit and in the main hospital.
