Measles death toll hits 439
Seven more children died from measles and measles-like symptoms across Bangladesh in the 24 hours ending at 8am Thursday, pushing the total death toll from the ongoing outbreak to 439, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Of the seven new deaths, one was laboratory-confirmed as measles-related while the remaining six were classified as suspected cases.
Dhaka division recorded the highest toll among the fresh fatalities, accounting for four of the seven deaths.
With Thursday’s figures, the cumulative confirmed death count since the outbreak began on 15 March has risen to 70, while the number of suspected deaths now stands at 369.
Cases cross 54,000
The DGHS data shows 1,363 new suspected measles cases were recorded in the same 24-hour period, bringing the total number of suspected cases to 54,419.
An additional 155 confirmed cases were reported, taking total confirmed infections to 7,305.
Since 15 March, a total of 39,160 suspected measles patients have required hospitalisation, of whom 34,968 have since recovered.
A crisis rooted in vaccine failure
The outbreak began in January in Rohingya refugee camps near the Myanmar border before spreading rapidly nationwide, now reaching 58 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts. Science
Recent declines in measles-rubella vaccine coverage — driven by a nationwide vaccine stockout between 2024 and 2025 — combined with routine immunisation gaps and the absence of supplementary nationwide campaigns since 2020, have sharply increased the number of susceptible children and contributed to the scale of the current outbreak. WHO
Government figures indicated that only 59% of eligible children received their measles vaccination in 2025, well short of the 95% coverage threshold needed to prevent outbreaks. Science
Public health experts have placed much of the blame on a breakdown in procurement systems.
Critics said that Bangladesh’s Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Programme — which had been in place since 1998 — was scrapped in March 2025 without an adequate transition plan, causing vaccine procurement to stall and medicine supplies to more than 14,000 community clinics to dwindle. IANS News
Public health expert Dr Mushtaq Hossain said gaps in timely vaccination had worsened the situation, adding that had a proper tier-based treatment system been followed during the outbreak, the mortality rate could have been significantly reduced. Dhaka Tribune
Calls for emergency declaration
At a meeting of the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) in April, experts agreed that deaths showing measles-like symptoms during an outbreak should also be counted as measles-related fatalities — a classification that has added substantially to the official toll. Dhaka Tribune
Public health and vaccine expert Tajul Islam Bari said infections and deaths were increasing but were not being effectively controlled, and called for the declaration of a public health emergency, noting that the threshold of 50,000 cases had already been crossed. Dhaka Tribune
The WHO has assessed the risk at the national level as high, citing ongoing transmission across multiple divisions, a large number of susceptible children and documented immunity gaps.
The concentration of cases among unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children — including infants too young to be vaccinated — raises concern over continued transmission and severe outcomes. WHO
A targeted measles-rubella vaccination campaign was launched on 5 April, though health officials have acknowledged that controlling the outbreak will require sustained effort across an already strained public health system.
