Dhaka, Bangladesh on Monday recorded its highest single-day deaths of 17 children as the measles outbreak rapidly spread nationwide, with health officials saying the highly infectious disease has so far claimed over 300 deaths in the past 50 days.
“Seventeen more children died in the past 24 hours with measles or its symptoms across the country,” a directorate general of health services spokesman said on Monday.
He said during the same period, 1,456 patients with measles symptoms were admitted to hospitals across the country. Laboratory tests confirmed 154 of them to be measles-inflicted ones.
Two weeks ago, the World Health Organisation officially assessed the ongoing measles outbreak in the South Asian nation as a “high” national risk, warning of continued transmission unless urgent measures were taken to close “immunity gaps”.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s new Bangladesh Nationalist Party government launched a nationwide emergency campaign on April 20 to vaccinate around 1.8 crore children aged 6 months to under 5 years.
The record toll was reported two days after health minister Sardar Sakhawat Husain claimed measles was currently under control and the death rate declined significantly with adequate vaccine supplies and its smooth nationwide distribution.
He said that over 81 per cent of children have received the measles vaccine, and the government was trying to achieve 100 per cent coverage soon.
For decades, Bangladesh carried out the Expanded Programme on Immunisation with measles vaccination as a core component and the country’s performance in controlling the disease was widely recognised as a global success story between 2000 and 2019.
The 19-year period saw a dramatic decline in deaths and high vaccination coverage, and in 2018, Bangladesh officially achieved its measles-rubella control goal and was verified as having interrupted endemic transmission of certain strains as it moved toward full measles elimination.
But the success story ran dry in 2026 due to vaccine shortage, a failure that officials attributed to the vaccine stockout in 2024-2025, during the past interim government led by Muhammad Yunus.
Prime Minister Rahman called the failure of the past regimes a “life-destroying” and “unforgivable crime”.
BNP’s health affairs secretary Mohammad Rafiqul Islam said the measles outbreak occurred “due to the interim government’s failure to provide vaccines on time.”
“UNICEF is deeply concerned about the sharp rise in measles cases across Bangladesh, putting thousands of children, especially the youngest and most vulnerable, at serious risk,” UNICEF Representative in Dhaka Rana Flowers said in a recent statement.
Flowers said this resurgence “highlights critical immunity gaps, particularly among zero-dose and under-vaccinated children, while infections among infants under nine months, who are not yet eligible for routine vaccination, are especially alarming.”
The WHO, meanwhile, said without a rapid scale-up of vaccination and response measures, transmission was “likely to continue expanding, placing further strain on health services and increasing the risk of severe health outcomes among children”.
Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and peer-reviewed weekly, in its latest issue, said “changes to the government’s vaccine purchase system after 2024 revolution led to nationwide shortages, gaps in immunity”.
A violent student-led street protest dubbed the July Uprising toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s now disbanded Awami League on August 5, 2024 and appointed Yunus as the head of an unelected regime.
“A country of more than 175 million that has long taken pride in its high vaccination rates, the epidemic stems from a catastrophic breakdown in vaccine procurement following the country’s 2024 revolution,” read the Science report.
It headlined “Measles explodes in Bangladesh after vaccination breakdown, killing hundreds of children”.
Officials said the central administrative Dhaka division, including the capital, was the worst measles-stricken region, followed by northwestern Rajshahi division, but the other regions too were suffering the onslaught of the disease.
Health experts said Monday’s DGHS-reported measles death toll was the highest in decades, while officials said more than 45,000 cases were recorded since March 15.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
