Bangladesh measles outbreak nears 1,000 deaths since March

At least two more children died in Bangladesh over the past 24 hours from complications linked to measles, bringing the reported death toll from the outbreak to nearly 1,000 since it began in March.

Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Health Services said 100 children had been confirmed to have died from measles. Another 899 people died with symptoms compatible with the disease. The country has recorded 19,835 confirmed cases and 166,461 suspected cases since March 15.

The government said it had vaccinated 19,740,254 children since April, exceeding a target of 18,015,064. Public health experts nevertheless said the outbreak reflected years of failure to achieve sufficient immunity among young children through vaccination.

They also questioned whether the vaccine had remained effective. Zakir Hossain, a former director of Bangladesh’s Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, said storage required a reliable cold chain. Frequent power cuts, he suggested, may have disrupted that system and reduced the vaccine’s effectiveness.

The World Health Organization said in April that the outbreak was taking place amid inadequate population immunity. Children aged 1 to 14 accounted for 91% of cases, including those who had not been vaccinated, received only one dose, or were infected before reaching the minimum vaccination age of nine months.

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A certain cold chain had to be maintained for vaccine storage. I suspect this was not possible at every level because of frequent power cuts. This could have made the vaccine ineffective against the disease.