Bangladesh struggles to contain deadly measles outbreak
A woman takes care of her child while getting treatment for measles during an outbreak at a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. (AP photo)
Thousands of children have been sickened by a measles outbreak that’s sweeping across Bangladesh and has killed hundreds of children following setbacks to the country’s vaccine program.
Bangladesh has been racing to halt the outbreak’s spread since March, when more than 100 children died in less than a month. By Sept. 8, the death toll from suspected measles cases reached 999 since the start of the year, according to the government’s Directorate General of Health Services.
Since March, the country has recorded more than 166,000 suspected measles cases, including 19,835 laboratory-confirmed infections, according to the Ministry of Health.
