Infants deaths

Safe Sleep Day focuses on unexplained infant deaths

My Baby's Village is an initiative led by the Pacific Infant Care Collective that aims to ensure Pacific parents of newborns have all the support they need to keep their baby safe.

The organisation said there has been a spike in unexplained deaths among infants across Auckland over the past two years.

SUDI, or Sudden Unexplained Death in Infancy, describes when a baby dies from an unexplained cause or through accidental and preventable circumstances.

About half of the Auckland region's SUDI deaths each year are Pacific tamariki.

Samoa recalls MMR vaccine after two deaths

The Director General of Health Leausa Dr Take Naseri says different nurses administered the vaccine to the infants at a hospital in Safotu on Savaii.

He says the infants were the first to get the MMR vaccine and testing is now underway to see if it was responsible for the deaths, "so now immediate action to recall all [of them] - we've ceased and sent out a directive to stop and cease all vaccinations of the children with the MMR."

The families of the two children have asked the police to investigate the deaths.