Measles vaccination to reach full coverage in a week: Health minister

Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain today said all children in the country will be brought under measles vaccination coverage within the next week.

He made the remarks while speaking at a programme held at the TB Hospital in Shyamoli, Dhaka, this morning.

The event was organised to hand over GeneXpert cartridges and tuberculosis prevention medicines for children, provided by the United States government, to the National Tuberculosis Control Programme.

US Ambassador to Bangladesh Brent Christensen handed over the cartridges and medicines to the health minister.

About the progress of measles vaccination, Sakhawat said, "We have covered 61 percent of the target. One hundred percent of children will be brought under measles vaccination coverage within the next week.”

“In many areas, it has already reached full coverage. There is not a single measles patient in the first 30 upazilas where the vaccination programme was launched,” he added.

Regarding measles infection and vaccination, he said no children have been vaccinated against measles for the last six years.

“We started it on an urgent basis. If UNICEF, Gavi (the Vaccine Alliance), the World Bank and America had not jointly supported, the situation could have been different today. There would have been much more loss,” he said.

The health minister said the vaccines were supposed to be given across the country on May 5, but he brought it forward by 14 days. “When we received the measles vaccine, we did not wait for the scheduled time. We started working on April 20."

He said the United States has handed over six lakh GeneXpert cartridges and anti-tuberculosis drugs for 11,000 children, which will play a role in controlling tuberculosis.

The minister also said there is no shortage of vaccines and syringes, adding that supplies will reach all vaccination centres across the country by tomorrow.