Bangladesh confirms 94 children died in 19 days due to measles

Dhaka: Bangladesh on Sunday said a severe measles outbreak has claimed lives of at least 94 children in the past 19 days, prompting the government to launch an emergency remedial campaign for the infectious disease.

As the outbreak affected 56 out of the 64 administrative districts, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman's government blamed the Interim government of Muhammad Yunus for its failure to provide vaccines on time for measles.

Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said 10 of the total 94 measles related deaths occurred in 24 hours ending at 8 am Sunday even as the number of suspected measles cases detected grew to 5,792 during the 19 days, 974 of them since Saturday.

"The highly infectious disease has seen a sharp rise this year, particularly since March," a DGHS statement said, attributing the phenomenon to vaccination gap last year.

Officials reported that the disease was spreading rapidly and by now affected 56 out of 64 administrative districts. The DGHS report suggests the outbreak has hit the hardest in the northwestern Rajshahi region where health officials have stepped up surveillance and case-tracking.

Health Minister Sardar Shakhawat Hossain Bakul said the emergency vaccination drive would cover the "worst affected areas" before being expanded throughout Bangladesh.

In a related development, Rahman's government accused Yunus' Interim government of being negligent towards the issue. "You can call it failure or negligence of the past interim government in carrying out the campaign to prevent the measles or rubella," Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said.

Ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party's (BNP) Health Affairs secretary Mohammad Rafiqul Islam echoed the sentiment as he added that the measles outbreak has occurred "due to the interim government's failure to provide vaccines on time."

Islam said the first measles case was detected in Rohingya camps on January 4 when the interim government was still in power. It was aware of the situation at that time but effective measures could not be taken in time, leading to the current rise in infections, he claimed.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics, Bangladesh's vaccination coverage against measles was over 96 per cent from 2016 to 2024, the year when a violent student-lead protest toppled the then prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government.

Health officials said Bangladesh's vaccination rates experienced a significant decline in 2024 and 2025 when the interim government ran the country while previously most Bangladeshi children received the vaccine on time.

"We were committed to reduce the (measles death) number to zero by December 2025 but failed to achieve the target due to poor vaccination programmes," chief of National Verification Committee of Measles and Rubella Mahbubur Rahman said.

As the outbreak continued to spread quickly, independent health experts said the actual toll could be higher as measles testing is either not done or patients die before testing.