The measles situation in Bangladesh reveals the shambolic state of child health management. According to a report published in the Dhaka Tribune, the test is only available at the Institute of Public Health which is currently experiencing a severe shortage of testing kits.
Bangladesh has ratified major human rights treaties and was elected unanimously to serve as a Vice President of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in December 2024. With membership on the Council comes a responsibility to uphold high human rights standards.
It has been stated in Article 25 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”.
Bangladesh signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which lays the responsibility with the state: “States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services” said in Article 24 of CRC.
It also says in Article 3, paragraph 1: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
If the best interest of the children were considered, availability of both vaccines and kits would have been ensured well in advance.
However, authorities started acting only when the situation deteriorated. Amid the ongoing nationwide outbreak, the government has intensified its emergency vaccination campaign with the health minister recently saying that we expected to achieve full coverage soon.
He claimed that infection rates and child mortality had already begun to decline following the immunisation drive and would improve further as coverage expands.
Bangladesh is also committed to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) while SDG 3 is the primary goal dedicated to health, aiming to "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages" by 2030.
The government tracks each indicator and the SDG tracker contains the findings of the Coverage Evaluation Survey 2023. According to the CES 2023, the coverage of the first dose of the measles-rubella vaccine (MR1) dropped to 86% in 2023 from 88.6% in 2019. The decline was sharper for the second dose (MR2), falling from 89% in 2019 to 80.7% in 2023, which has raised concerns over incomplete immunisation.
The decline reportedly prevented Bangladesh from achieving the herd immunity threshold of about 95%, necessary for interrupting measles transmission and meeting elimination targets.
Bangladesh had aimed to eliminate measles by 2020, but the target was later extended to 2026 after repeated failures to maintain adequate vaccination coverage.
The actual number of measles deaths is likely higher than the central tally, with experts speculating many deaths were not recorded as the afflicted children might not have been brought to hospitals and rather treated at home or remained untreated.
The human rights principle of accountability ensures that individuals, institutions, and states are responsible for respecting, protecting, and fulfilling human rights, with mechanisms in place to provide remedies for violations.
Accountability must be ensured; hundreds of children have died and continue to die and a thorough investigation is needed. It is also empirical to declare measles an epidemic and take any measures necessary to contain its spread.
Oli Md Abdullah Chowdhury is a human rights worker.
