Published : 26 Sep 2026, 01:45 PM
Updated : 26 Sep 2026, 01:45 PM
A nationwide special vaccination campaign has begun as Bangladesh steps up efforts to contain the measles outbreak.
Inaugurating the campaign at the TNT playground in Dhaka’s Korail on Saturday, Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain said the government aims to vaccinate 3.4 million children, including 2.4 million who previously missed out.
“Our target is 3.4 million children nationwide,” the health minister said. “This includes 1 million infants who recently reached the six-month mark and 2.4 million missed children.”
The drive, titled the “Intensified MR Catch-up Vaccination”, will run through Oct 31.
Earlier vaccination rounds beginning in April covered 18.5 million children. Subsequent Vitamin A campaigns identified a gap of around 4 million children, prompting follow-up mop-up operations that reached another 1.4 million.
Despite those efforts, measles transmission has continued, prompting the latest catch-up campaign targeting children aged six to 59 months.
UNICEF has supplied 4.3 million vaccine doses to support the drive. [The figures on distribution and reserve stocks need checking: the supplied copy says 4 million were distributed to Upazilas and 1 million kept in reserve, which exceeds the 4.3 million supplied.]
Total national stocks currently stand at 5.8 million doses.
Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF representative to Bangladesh, highlighted the urgency of the campaign.
“Nearly 1,000 lives have been lost,” she said, referring to the recent measles outbreak. “It is a tragic reminder of the importance of keeping every child vaccinated.”
Mellsop stressed that the campaign complements, rather than replaces, routine immunisation.
Dr Rajesh Narwal, deputy representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Bangladesh, said transmission remained ongoing, particularly among unvaccinated children under five.
Health workers will need to vaccinate more than 100,000 children a day to reach the target of 3.4 million within 36 days, he added.
To ensure access for working mothers, vaccination centres will operate seven days a week, with evening services also available.
At the local level, administrative officials, health officers and field staff are coordinating the campaign across unions and Upazilas.
Joint monitoring teams from the WHO, UNICEF and the health ministry will conduct field reviews across all eight divisions from Oct 4 to 14 to assess the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) and disease surveillance systems.
Health Services Division Secretary ANM Bazlur Rashid expressed confidence that reaching the target would help establish herd immunity and bring Bangladesh closer to eliminating measles and rubella.
