Dhaka, April 6 -- Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain told the Bangladesh Parliament that the sharp rise in measles cases in the country is primarily due to the prolonged vaccination gaps and administrative lapses in recent years, particularly under the previous interim government, where vaccination rates were noted to have fallen to an all-time low.
Responding to a notice raised by National Citizen Party (NCP) MP, Akhter Hossen, the minister said the last nationwide measles-rubella campaign was conducted in December 2020, and had not been repeated for more than five and a half years, despite a standard four-year cycle.
The long gap, he said, left a large portion of children, including newborns outside the ambit o...