It isn’t as if the current civil war in Syria has not already taken a ravenous toll on the Middle Eastern country’s children, but so, too, has a recently administered measles vaccine that the Assad government claims was sabotaged.
According to a mid-September report by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, at least 36 children were recently reported to have died “excruciating deaths” after being given what Damascus says were “tainted” vaccines via a United Nations-sponsored program in the rebel-held northern part of the country.
The deaths caused UN health officials to suspend the vaccination program, especially following reports that the vaccines were sabotaged. The effort in Syria to provide care for the civil war’s victims is a high-profile affair, and the UN vaccination effort was ostensibly premised on a desire to prevent an outbreak of measles.