Bangladesh Plans New Measles Catch-Up Campaign as Toll Passes 1,000

Outbreak puts renewed focus on vaccination gaps

DHAKA, September 16, 2026 — Bangladesh is preparing another intensified measles-rubella vaccination campaign as the country’s worst outbreak in years continues to expose gaps in routine immunisation, vaccine access and the health system’s ability to reach children missed by previous vaccination drives.

The latest Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) data available through September 13 recorded 1,022 combined confirmed and suspected measles-related deaths since March 15. Of those, 100 deaths were laboratory-confirmed, while 922 were classified as suspected measles-related deaths.

During the same period, Bangladesh recorded 171,543 suspected measles cases and 20,069 laboratory-confirmed cases. More than 151,000 suspected measles patients were admitted to hospitals, highlighting the pressure the outbreak has placed on health facilities.

The government has announced a fresh nationwide vaccination effort for late September. Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain said on September 10 that a large-scale special campaign would begin on September 25, with vaccines supplied through UNICEF for children who remain outside vaccination coverage. Subsequent reporting indicated that the EPI was still preparing an intensified catch-up campaign and that the operational start date could be September 26, subject to finalisation.

A campaign focused on children who were missed

The new effort is expected to place greater emphasis on identifying children who remained outside previous vaccination activities.

The Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) has instructed field-level health authorities to provide updated data on children aged six to 59 months who were missed during earlier measles vaccination activities.

Divisional health authorities, civil surgeons, city corporation health offices and upazila-level officials were asked to rapidly identify children who remain unvaccinated. The central challenge is whether those children can be accurately located and reached after previous nationwide campaigns reported high overall coverage.

Earlier this year, Bangladesh launched an emergency measles-rubella vaccination campaign after infections spread rapidly across the country. The campaign began in high-risk areas before expanding nationwide, targeting children aged six months to 59 months and prioritising those who had missed routine immunisation.

The government later conducted a mop-up campaign after transmission continued, vaccinating another 1.4 million children, according to the health minister. However, new infections and deaths continued to be reported, prompting authorities to prepare another intervention.

Why the immunity gap remains

The continuing outbreak suggests that reported campaign coverage does not necessarily mean every vulnerable child has been protected.

WHO has identified several structural factors behind Bangladesh’s outbreak, including a nationwide measles-rubella vaccine stockout during 2024 and 2025, gaps in routine immunisation and the absence of regular nationwide supplementary measles-rubella campaigns since 2020. These factors increased the number of susceptible children and created conditions for wider transmission.

UNICEF has also highlighted the importance of closing immunity gaps through emergency campaigns while strengthening routine immunisation. UNICEF-supported reporting on the 2026 response noted that cases and deaths continued despite emergency vaccination efforts, reflecting accumulated immunity gaps and difficulties in reaching persistently missed, unregistered and mobile children.

Available UNICEF data show 86% coverage for the second dose of measles-containing vaccine, leaving Bangladesh below the level generally needed to maintain very high population protection against measles.

WHO recommends two doses of measles-containing vaccine through routine immunisation and stresses that mass campaigns can rapidly close immunity gaps but cannot fully replace a strong routine vaccination system.

Access, misinformation and health-system pressure

The challenge extends beyond vaccine availability. Public-health experts have raised concerns about whether authorities can accurately identify all missed children within the limited time available before the new campaign.

The planned catch-up effort is expected to focus on children aged six to 59 months, while surveillance data have also raised questions about infections among children outside that age group. Vaccinating missed young children will therefore be one part of a broader outbreak response.

Hard-to-reach communities add another logistical challenge. WHO has documented vaccination teams travelling to remote river islands and other difficult locations during the emergency campaign, illustrating the effort required to reach children facing barriers related to geography, mobility or distance.

Vaccine supply has also been significant. The Ministry of Health has said new vaccine supplies arrived through UNICEF and that additional doses were being arranged for the next campaign.

However, supply alone cannot guarantee success. Families must know where and when vaccines are available, trust the programme and be able to bring eligible children to vaccination centres.

While official and international assessments clearly document vaccine stockouts, missed routine immunisation and access challenges, the scale of misinformation or vaccine hesitancy as a direct driver of the current outbreak remains less clearly quantified in the reviewed material. Determining its role will require further district-level reporting and interviews with civil surgeons, vaccinators and affected families.

The outbreak has also placed substantial pressure on hospitals. WHO reported overcrowding, limited isolation capacity and gaps in referral and treatment in high-burden areas during the emergency response. UNICEF has supported hospitals with additional respiratory and clinical equipment and deployed medical surge capacity.

The central question now is not simply how many vaccine doses Bangladesh can administer, but whether the health system can reliably find every child who has been missed.

What the new campaign will need to address

The upcoming drive is expected to move beyond broad population targets and focus more directly on children missed by earlier vaccination activities.

Its effectiveness will depend on how EPI identifies unvaccinated children, whether local health offices have sufficiently accurate records, whether adequate vaccine stocks and cold-chain capacity are available, and how quickly health workers can reach mobile, remote and underserved communities.

WHO’s recent regional work involving Bangladesh has also highlighted the importance of making catch-up vaccination a continuous part of routine immunisation rather than relying on emergency campaigns during outbreaks.

With the death toll now above 1,000 and suspected cases exceeding 171,000, the immediate priority is to interrupt transmission and protect vulnerable children. The longer-term challenge will be ensuring that routine immunisation remains strong enough to prevent the same immunity gap from reopening after the emergency campaign ends.