Bangladesh to give measles shots to 1.6mn more children as vaccination gaps emerge

The government will vaccinate another 1.6 million children against measles after identifying gaps in immunisation coverage in parts of Bangladesh.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Inter-Agency Coordination Committee on Immunisation at the health ministry on Sunday.

Health Services Division Secretary Md Kamruzzaman Chowdhury said data from two organisations showed that some children aged between 6 months and 5 years had missed out on vaccination in pockets of the country.

“In light of that, we will administer the 1.6 million vaccines we currently have,” he said.

The government is also moving to procure another 2.5 million doses to guard against future shortages, according to Kamruzzaman.

“We will give 1.6 million now and are procuring 2.5 million vaccines for the future. We have spoken with UNICEF about purchasing these vaccines,” he added.

Representatives from the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the health ministry, the Directorate General of Health Services and several other ministries attended the meeting.

Coverage Figures Under Scrutiny

The decision comes amid questions over official figures showing measles vaccination coverage exceeding the campaign target.

According to the latest measles bulletin released on Monday, about 19.4 million people have been vaccinated against a target of around 18 million, putting the reported coverage rate at 107.5 percent.

But experts have questioned the figures since the release of separate data on children who received Vitamin A Plus capsules on Jun 28.

Figures from the Institute of Public Health Nutrition and the EPI show that 22,360,509 children received Vitamin A capsules that day.

Measles bulletin data, meanwhile, showed 18.5 million children had received the vaccine, a difference of 3.9 million.

The figures suggest that millions of children who could potentially be eligible for measles vaccination may not have been covered by the campaign.

Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain had earlier criticised vaccine procurement over the previous four years.

“Over the past four years, when measles vaccines were supposed to be administered, they did not procure the vaccines. There has been no campaign since December 2020. Even when UNICEF requested it, they did not buy the vaccines,” he said at an event at the International Mother Language Institute on Jul 29.