Bangladesh is battling the world’s worst measles outbreak — and health experts say it is a warning every country should heed.
The country’s routine vaccination programme faltered in 2025, and since the outbreak began in mid-March, Bangladesh has reported 202,000 suspected measles cases — 22,000 of them laboratory-confirmed — through October 9, the World Health Organization said. That is more suspected cases than any other country this year. So far 1,147 people have died, and 94 per cent of the dead were children under five, according to Reuters’ investigation.
How it unravelled
Bangladesh had almost reached the 95 per cent vaccination coverage the WHO says is needed to prevent outbreaks — then coverage dropped. A Reuters review of WHO documents, alongside interviews with more than a dozen scientists, health workers and officials, found the emergency response hampered by data that left out millions of children, shortcomings in preparation and a failure to reach enough parents.
“This is a real warning to every country,” said Mark Jit, a WHO vaccine adviser and professor at New York University’s School of Global Public Health. Preventing an outbreak through vaccination, he said, was easier, cheaper and safer than responding to an emergency: “The response will stop the outbreak eventually, but in the meantime, many will have had measles, and some will have died.”
The lesson
The crisis echoes the gaps exposed by recent health emergencies, from America’s record lettuce outbreak to the global push for a fairer pandemic pact. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known — and one of the most preventable. Bangladesh’s tragedy is what happens when prevention slips.
Health officials say the immediate priority is reaching unvaccinated children with catch-up campaigns. The WHO’s target is 95 per cent coverage — the threshold Bangladesh nearly reached before it slipped, and the line between containment and catastrophe.
