Samoa's main streets were eerily quiet today as the government stepped up efforts to curb a measles epidemic that has killed 62 people.

Axar.az reports that the government told the most public and private workers to stay home today and tomorrow and shut down roads to nonessential vehicles as teams began going door-to-door to administer vaccines.
Families in the Pacific island nation were asked to hang red flags from their houses if they needed to be vaccinated.

Most of those who have died from the virus are young, with 54 deaths among children aged four or younger.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told reporters the vaccine drive was unprecedented in the nation's history.
He said one challenge was that a lot of people hadn't considered that measles could be deadly.
"They seem to take a kind of lackadaisical attitude to all the warnings that we had issued through the television and also through the radio," he said.