Nadia Akter Manna and Humayun Rashid look at a dress belonging to their 9-month-old daughter, Labiba Akter, who died during a recent deadly measles outbreak, in Sunamganj, Bangladesh. | REUTERS
Oct 20, 2026
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 nations about the deadly risk of falling immunization rates.
Bangladesh, whose routine vaccination program faltered in 2025, reported 202,000 suspected measles cases — 22,000 of them laboratory-confirmed — since 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 five years old, the WHO said.
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Source: The Japan Times · Ruma Paul, Jennifer Rigby, Sam Jahan
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