London Bangla A Force for the community…
IN 2025, just 125 cases of measles were recorded in Bangladesh. In the first three months of 2026, there are 900 confirmed cases and 6,600 suspected cases. One hundred people, mostly children, have died.
Bangladesh vaccinates children against measles when they reach the age of nine months. The current spread of the disease has revealed that the programme may need to be rethought. Some children are missing out on vaccination, and around one third of children suffering in this current outbreak are contracting this contagious disease before they reach nine months.
Bangladesh has usually run a vaccination campaign every four years, aiming to catch children who have slipped through the net and to keep standard vaccination rates high enough to be effective. However, the efforts put into dealing with Covid and the political turmoil in the country have seen no special campaigns run since 2020. A campaign was due to start in April this year (2026), but it does not seem to have happened. There have been some reports that the country is short of vaccines.
The current outbreak and rapid spread of measles has prompted Bangladesh to launch an emergency vaccination campaign in 30 upazilas (districts), concentrating on Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar (where Rohingya refugee camps are located) – both densely populated areas. The aim is to vaccinate 1.2 million children between the ages of six months and five years who have not been vaccinated before.
Measles is a serious illness, often contracted in childhood. Those who contract the disease usually have a high temperature and sore eyes, which may be red and watery. They also cough and sneeze and have a rash. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says measles killed around 95,000 people across the world last year.
Measles is also known to leave children blind and/or deaf, and it can weaken the lungs or leave children suffering from seizures. It also weakens the immune system and can eliminate the immune protection gained from previous vaccinations against other conditions. Some neurological conditions can arise after an attack of measles – some even years afterwards.
WHO is fighting measles with a vaccination programme. This is reducing the incidence of the disease: there were 38 million cases in 2000 and only 11 million cases in 2024. However, countries need to vaccinate 95% of their children in order to keep the disease away. Vaccination rates have declined since the pandemic, with some confused people denying that vaccinations offer protection and saying that they are harmful. The reduction in vaccinations has seen a rise in cases across most of the world. There was a measles outbreak centred on Enfield, north London, in February.
There is no need for children to suffer from measles and its consequences. Everyone in the UK should ensure their children receive their childhood vaccinations and should tell everyone they know in Bangladesh – or other parts of the world – to do so too. It is also important to stand up to the vaccine deniers and stop them from harming our children.
●Read more about it:
Boris: too little, too late on measles
Measles found in local schools
