The government will restart its measles vaccination campaign on September 25, Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Hossain said on Thursday, as overall fatalities from the outbreak reached 1,009 and Bangladesh confronts what Reuters has described as the “world’s worst measles outbreak”.

Most of the vaccines have already arrived in the country through UNICEF, Hossain told reporters after a seminar in Dhaka, adding that the remaining doses were expected by September 17.

The announcement came as the Health Directorate reported seven more deaths within 24 hours among people with measles symptoms, taking the total number of such deaths since March 15 to 909. Another 100 deaths have been confirmed as measles deaths, bringing overall fatalities to 1,009 as of September 10.

The directorate also reported 1,165 new suspected cases in the latest 24-hour period, taking the total since March 15 to 168,745. Confirmed cases rose by 29 to 19,933.

A total of 148,505 people with measles symptoms have been admitted to hospital since March 15, of whom 142,888 have recovered and been discharged.

No confirmed measles deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours. Of the seven people who died with measles symptoms, three were in Dhaka division and one each in Sylhet, Rajshahi, Chattogram and Khulna divisions.

Bangladesh had gone nearly eight years without a measles death and had aimed to eliminate the disease by 2025, which would have qualified it for an elimination certificate this year. Yet measles, once thought to be fading from memory, has now killed more than 1,000 people and continues to infect several more.

The World Health Organization has said Bangladesh faced shortages of measles vaccine supplies in 2024–25. Changes in procurement procedures, administrative complications and supply problems, alongside disruptions to routine immunisation, also affected the programme.

Experts say the shortages and disruption created an “immunity gap” among children, and that the failure to close that gap later allowed the infection to spread.

The government’s latest vaccination effort follows a special measles-rubella campaign that targeted more than 18 million children aged six months to five years. Official figures show that nearly 19.7 million children were vaccinated, putting reported coverage at more than 109 percent.

Public health experts, however, say the figure does not necessarily show how many eligible children were actually reached.

They argue that judging the campaign solely against its target can obscure gaps if the target itself does not accurately reflect the number of eligible children. Some children could therefore remain outside the vaccination net even when reported coverage exceeds 100 percent. A comparison with data from the Vitamin A campaign for children in the same age group also shows a discrepancy in the numbers.

The health minister on Thursday also said that the government carried out mop-up operations after infections continued following the vaccination campaign, vaccinating another 1.4 million children.

Hossain accused the previous government of having left “no vaccines in the country” and said the current BNP-led government had procured doses for 18.5 million children within 21 days and completed the campaign.

Despite the scale of the vaccination effort, public health experts say gaps in patient management have also hampered efforts to bring the outbreak under control since it began in March 2026.

Experts have identified neglect of measles vaccination during the former interim government in 2025 as the main reason behind the resurgence, while also pointing to weaknesses in the treatment and management of infected patients.

Prof Syed Abdul Hamid of Dhaka University’s Institute of Health Economics told Bonik Barta that the government had made its utmost effort on vaccination but that significant gaps remained in measles patient management. He said separate hospitals could have been designated for measles patients, as was done during Covid-19, but this did not happen.

Dr Mushtuq Husain, a public health expert, told Bonik Barta: “The government should set up an integrated control centre to contain the outbreak. Conventional methods are not enough to resolve it.”

“Vaccination alone cannot cover everything,” he said, noting that some children in various areas remain outside the vaccination net and that infections are spreading among them.

Husain called for unvaccinated children to be identified and vaccinated quickly, while infected patients should be treated at designated hospitals as part of an integrated effort to identify, treat and manage cases.

Children under five are considered most at risk, according to public health experts. WHO, meanwhile, says children under two and unvaccinated children face a higher risk of serious illness and complications.

Dr Lelin Choudhury told Bonik Barta that the government should have set its vaccination targets correctly, noting that many children remain outside the vaccination net.

“It’s also necessary to properly investigate whether street children and children growing up in brothels have been vaccinated. It must likewise be established whether children in families engaged in garment work and similar occupations have received the vaccine. Their children may therefore remain outside vaccination coverage,” he added.

Choudhury also called for a review of how effective the measles vaccines used elsewhere are in Bangladesh and called for more research on the issue.

He added that children under six months are also being infected, possibly because they are not receiving adequate immunity from their mothers. “Such risks can arise for a child if the mother has not completed her measles vaccination,” Choudhury said.

Public health experts also note that a single round of mass vaccination is not enough to contain the measles outbreak in Bangladesh. Besides identifying and vaccinating children who remained outside vaccination coverage, experts stress the country must also ensure that another major vaccination gap does not develop in future.

The health minister said rural hospitals had been strengthened to ease pressure on Dhaka hospitals from rising dengue patients.

Isolation beds had been prepared at every hospital and mobile hospitals arranged, he said, adding that the Society of Medicine had provided coordination and guidance to upazila-level doctors to ensure treatment at that level and reduce the burden on tertiary hospitals.

“We were elected by the votes of the people. We have an accountability to the people. That’s why we are making our utmost efforts to protect public health,” Hossain said.

In August, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Bangladesh recorded the most measles infections globally in the first six months of 2026.