Bangladesh is enduring the world's worst measles outbreak of 2025, with more than 2,02,000 suspected cases and 1,147 deaths recorded since the outbreak began in mid-March, according to a new report citing World Health Organization (WHO) data. The country has logged more suspected cases than any other nation this year, underscoring a deepening public health emergency driven by the collapse of routine immunisation coverage.

Scale of the Outbreak

Of the 2,02,000 suspected cases, WHO data confirms 22,000 laboratory-verified infections. Critically, 94 per cent of all reported deaths have been among children under five — the most vulnerable and least protected age group. By September 2025, Bangladesh was recording an average of 1,198 new cases per day, the highest daily figure since May, indicating the outbreak had not yet peaked.

Why Immunisation Coverage Collapsed

The WHO stipulates that a vaccination coverage rate of at least 95 per cent is required to prevent measles outbreaks through herd immunity. Bangladesh had come close to that threshold in recent years, but coverage slipped sharply in 2025. WHO and UNICEF estimate first-dose coverage fell to 90 per cent, while second-dose coverage dropped to 86 per cent — well below the critical threshold.

Paradoxically, reported numbers of inoculated individuals in some areas exceeded 100 per cent of targets, suggesting serious errors in dose counting or target population estimates. A joint review by UNICEF and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics found that 40 per cent of children went unregistered — effectively invisible to health planners. Compounding the crisis, government data reportedly shows that around a third of health worker posts across the country remain unfilled.

Faulty Data and a Broken Emergency Response

Analysis of WHO documents and interviews with scientists, health workers and officials revealed that Bangladesh's emergency response was severely hampered by unreliable data that left millions of children outside the vaccination net. Experts described a system where gaps in coverage, weak outreach, and administrative failures reinforced each other, making containment difficult even once the outbreak was identified.

One case highlighted the human cost of these failures: a two-year-old named Arman Hossain from a remote village in the northeast Sylhet region died in July, unvaccinated, just 24 hours after being admitted to hospital. His father reportedly sold the family's three-wheeled auto rickshaw to pay for treatment. According to the family, health workers had not reached their remote village in time.

What Experts Are Calling For

Health experts have urged Bangladesh's government to urgently expand vaccination drives to children over five years, an age group that, according to available data, accounts for roughly a third of all measles cases in the current outbreak — a proportion that has received less policy attention than the under-five cohort. This comes amid broader international concern that post-pandemic disruptions to routine immunisation programmes have left dangerous gaps across South and Southeast Asia.

Whether Bangladesh can arrest the outbreak before the year ends will depend heavily on the government's ability to urgently rebuild vaccination infrastructure and correct the data-collection failures that allowed so many children to fall through the net.