Measles outbreak in Bangladesh is a ‘real warning’ to other countries, experts say

SYLHET, Bangladesh — Bangladesh is battling to contain the world’s worst measles outbreak, a crisis exacerbated by weak data, inadequate outreach and vaccination gaps that experts say offers a warning to other countries about the deadly risk of falling immunization rates.

Bangladesh, whose routine vaccination program faltered in 2025, has reported 202,000 suspected measles cases — 22,000 of them laboratory-confirmed — from the start of the outbreak in mid-March to Oct. 9, the World Health Organization said. That’s more suspected cases than any other country this year.

So far, 1,147 people have died of the highly contagious disease, with 94% of reported deaths among children under 5 years old, the WHO said.

Bangladesh’s experience shows the challenge of containing an outbreak when vaccination coverage falls below 95%, a level the WHO says is needed to prevent outbreaks. Bangladesh almost achieved that in recent years, but coverage dropped in 2025.

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A Reuters review of WHO documents, alongside interviews with more than a dozen scientists, health workers and officials, shows that Bangladesh was also hampered in its emergency response by data that left out millions of children, shortcomings in preparation and a failure to…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health