Dhaka, April 7 (IANS). Measles outbreak is increasing in Bangladesh. On Tuesday, the country’s Director General of Health Services (DGHS) said 118 people, mostly children, have died due to suspected cases and complications.
According to DGHS, this number of deaths was recorded from March 15 to Monday morning. Five people had died in just 24 hours between Sunday and Monday.
The Health Agency said that the number of suspected measles patients is 2006 and most of them are children who are undergoing treatment in different hospitals of the country.
Reports suggest that two more children suffering from symptoms of the infectious disease have died at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH), taking the total number of deaths at the hospital to 42.
Bangladeshi daily Dhaka Tribune, quoting hospital spokesperson Shankar Kumar Biswas, reported that the two children died within 24 hours (Sunday-Monday).
Experts warned that without improvements in the system, emergency measures taken to control measles are unlikely to make much difference.
Benazir Ahmed, experts and former director of disease control at DGHS, said that the interim government of Muhammad Yunus had suddenly canceled the sectoral program that provided funds for vaccination. Due to this, a measles vaccine crisis arose, due to which many children died.
“When we should be celebrating something positive on World Health Day, we are having to fight an outbreak, which is really very painful. We have to eliminate measles-rubella by 2026, but we are struggling with the increasing number of measles patients in hospitals,” Ahmed was quoted as saying by Bangladesh’s leading newspaper Daily Star.
Apart from this, the special campaign of immunization planned for the end of 2024 could not be carried out amid the political changes.
According to health officials, the interim government did not launch any such drive, while workers administering the shots went on strike three times in 2025, disrupting the routine vaccination programme.
Another official, speaking to The Daily Star on condition of anonymity, said that due to lack of funds, the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) had to ration the vaccine in some areas since January.
Another public health expert, Mushtaq Hussain, said that although the government has launched an emergency vaccination campaign to control the surge in measles cases and deaths, the health sector needs reforms to ensure sustained progress.
As the death toll continues to rise, experts have appealed to the government to take immediate action, warning that if no action is taken, measles could turn deadly as one patient can infect 16 to 18 people.
–IANS
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