More than 1,000 people have died from measles in Bangladesh this year as delayed vaccination campaigns, procurement disruptions and gaps in routine immunisation left large numbers of children without protection, turning a preventable disease into one of the country’s gravest public health crises in years.
The scale of the outbreak has exposed a chain of failures stretching across administrations and institutions. Public health experts point to the failure to hold the scheduled national measles-rubella campaign in 2024, changes in vaccine procurement, administrative complications, disruptions to routine immunisation and weaknesses in identifying children who had missed their doses.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), measles deaths this year have now exceeded 1,000. A World Health Organization South-East Asia regional meeting in June reported that 92% of the children who died from measles in Bangladesh had not received any measles vaccine.
The government is now preparing another nationwide vaccination drive from September 28, targeting around three million children missed by previous programmes. But health experts warn that plugging the immunity gap will require more than another campaign, calling for stronger routine vaccination, accurate identification of unvaccinated children, isolation of cases and expanded hospital capacity.
Campaign delayed for more than a year
Bangladesh’s national measles-rubella special campaign is supposed to take place every four years. The previous campaign was held from December 2020 to January 2021, meaning the next was due in 2024.
It never took place.
A subsequent plan to conduct the campaign in September 2025 was also not implemented. The nationwide drive eventually began on April 20, 2026, after the outbreak had already taken hold, and ended in May.
Health sources said the interim government changed the vaccine procurement process, disrupting coordination with Unicef. Routine immunisation was also affected by work stoppages and strikes among health workers, leaving many children without timely vaccination.
Unicef Bangladesh Representative Rana Flowers said the interim government had been warned at least 10 times about the measles vaccine crisis, with five to six official letters sent between 2024 and February 2026. She also alleged that changing the procurement policy without consulting Unicef pushed the process into bureaucratic complications and interrupted vaccine supplies.
Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Hossain has blamed the previous interim government, saying it left office without purchasing vaccines and that there was no measles vaccine stock when the current government assumed office.
Questions over vaccination figures
The crisis has also exposed inconsistencies in official vaccination data.
The EPI dashboard showed measles vaccination coverage at only 57.1% in 2025, a figure that remained online until March 31 this year before being removed. The DGHS Management Information System later reported coverage of 92.73% among nine-month-old children and 90.78% among those aged 15 months. Experts said the discrepancies and failure to analyse risks in time weakened the response.
Questions have also emerged over how many children were targeted during the special campaign. The MR program targeted 18.015 million children, while the Vitamin A Plus campaign covered more than 22.36 million, a difference of around 3.88 million children. Experts said errors in estimating the target population may have excluded a large number from the outset.
EPI Joint Deputy Director Sabbir Haider acknowledged that headline coverage figures can obscure the actual immunity gap.
“Although 102 percent vaccination coverage has been achieved, many children are still actually unvaccinated,” he told Dhaka Tribune, explaining that children outside the intended age group may have received doses and pushed the statistical coverage above 100%.
Another three million children targeted
With infections and deaths failing to decline as expected after the April-May campaign, the government has decided on another nationwide drive on September 28 targeting approximately three million previously excluded children.
Authorities have also lowered the first-dose age from nine months to six months in special circumstances, strengthened hospital treatment, trained doctors and nurses in managing severe measles and pneumonia, and begun efforts to identify missed children.
The DGHS currently has around 1.5–1.6 million vaccine doses in stock and has ordered another four million. Door-to-door identification of unvaccinated children is also expected to be intensified.
But specialists say the outbreak demonstrates a deeper breakdown in routine immunisation rather than a problem that can be solved through one-off campaigns alone.
Public health and vaccination expert Tajul Islam A Bari said delayed campaigns and the resulting “immunity gap” were major factors behind the crisis. Vaccination coverage above 95%, he said, sharply reduces the possibility of measles spreading in a community.
Professor Dr ABM Abdullah said the tragedy was particularly alarming because measles is preventable.
“We did not see any deaths from measles 20-30 years ago. Although measles is a complex disease, it is easily preventable. This situation has arisen today due to lack of timely vaccination,” he said.
Public health expert Dr Mushtaq Hossain said children who remain outside vaccination coverage must be reached rapidly and suggested considering vaccination for children aged six to 15, as infections are also occurring in that age group. He also called for stronger healthcare capacity outside Dhaka and better nutrition for children.
The outbreak has already defied earlier expectations. On April 17, the health minister said measles would be brought under control within a week, but no significant improvement followed. In August, State Minister for Health Dr MA Muhith said that even if the pace of vaccination doubled, bringing the outbreak fully under control could take another two to three months.
For experts, the central lesson is that Bangladesh is confronting not simply a resurgence of measles, but the consequences of accumulated gaps in the immunisation system, with unvaccinated children bearing the heaviest cost.