Dhaka, 19 October. Deaths linked to measles in Bangladesh have risen to 1,201 after five more children died of measles-like symptoms in a day, the Directorate General of Health Services under the country's health ministry said.
Of all the deaths, 104 are confirmed measles cases. In a day 1,307 new suspected and 35 confirmed infections were recorded, and since mid-March, when the deadly rise began, suspected cases have exceeded 214,000, with more than 23,000 confirmed.
The authorities name the cause plainly: Bangladesh long had herd immunity against measles but lost it in recent years as vaccination coverage declined. Herd immunity is when so many people are vaccinated or have recovered that the virus can no longer find people to infect; measles requires very high coverage because it is more contagious than almost any other known infection.
Measles is an airborne viral infection; in young children it is especially dangerous because of its complications, above all pneumonia. Only cases confirmed by laboratory tests count as confirmed, which is why there are far fewer of them than deaths with measles-like symptoms.
As early as April, the World Health Organization reported that measles had spread to all eight divisions of Bangladesh and 58 of its 64 districts; most patients were in Dhaka, especially in densely populated slums, while 79% of cases were children under five and a third were infants under nine months, too young to be vaccinated.
Background: Since April the health ministry has vaccinated more than 20 million children through special programmes in addition to routine immunisation.
List of sources used: Anadolu, Anadolu, WHO
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
