Dhaka, April 16 -- Bangladesh will launch a nationwide special immunisation campaign on Apr 20 to contain a growing measles outbreak, but while vaccine stocks are sufficient, a shortage of syringes has emerged as a critical bottleneck.

Officials of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) said the country has about 20 million doses of measles vaccine, but only around 45,000 "mixing syringes" are available.

While this may be enough to begin the campaign, nearly 2 million syringes are required to administer the available stock fully.

Officials said two types of syringes are used for measles-rubella vaccination: 5ml syringes for mixing and 0.5ml syringes for administering doses.

Each vaccine vial contains 10 doses and requires one 5m...