Bangladesh is facing its deadliest measles outbreak in decades, overwhelming hospitals as pediatric wards fill and doctors struggle to contain a surge that has killed more than 300 children.
The South Asian nation had made steady gains in vaccination coverage in recent years, helping suppress the virus.
But those advances were undermined by immunization gaps that emerged during and after the turmoil of a 2024 uprising that toppled the autocratic government, leaving many young children vulnerable.
“I was almost sure I was going to lose her today. Her condition was terrible in the morning,” said Rina Begum, 45, as she held her 3-year-old granddaughter, Afia.
Exhausted and tearful, Begum said Afia had missed her second measles vaccine dose at 18 months and had spent the past two weeks in a measles ward in Dhaka.
