Children keep dying in a country that made huge progress on measles

Image caption, Nearly 750 people, including baby Arafat pictured here, have died from measles in Bangladesh in the past four months By Azadeh Moshiri South Asia correspondent , Reporting from Mymensingh Published 2 hours ago "I have never seen an outbreak this huge," says paediatrician Dr Mohammed Golam Mawla, as we look around a measles ward in the Bangladeshi city of Mymensingh. Until March this year, Bangladesh had made "substantial progress" towards eliminating measles, according to the World Health Organisation. Vaccination rates had been higher than 90% until recently. But that progress has quickly and suddenly come undone. Since March, government figures show nearly 750 people, mostly children, have died from the highly contagious disease, which spreads easily through breathing, coughing or sneezing. The death toll includes confirmed and suspected cases of measles. But Unicef says the true numbers are likely to be higher, given the sudden surge, an overwhelmed health system and difficulties in gathering data. Those numbers are made real by the dozens of families around us who have no choice but to lie on blankets on the floor, in the hallway. The ward at Medical College Hospital is at more than double its capacity, with nearly 130 patients in just 32 rooms. Image caption, Only the most severe cases receive a hospital bed in overcrowded wards like this one in Mymensingh Four-month-old Arafat is one of them. His nose is too small for oxygen tubes to sit comfortably so doctors have bandaged and taped them into place. "We have been in the hospital for about 15 days now, but my baby isn't getting any better," his father, Mohammad Alam Mia, tells us. His baby is writhing in the heat and struggling to breathe. Arafat's parents travelled nearly 10 hours to the hospital. His father vomited and fainted in the ambulance, as his first child became unresponsive. Doctors diagnosed Arafat with pneumonia and heart failure, both complications of measles. The little money Mohammad has is not enough for his treatment, and he's been forced to borrow from neighbours. Arafat is one of Bangladesh's more than 120,000 suspected and confirmed measles cases since cases spiked in mid-March, according to government figures. "This disease was under control in our country," says Mawla. Vaccines are highly effective. "Why did this suddenly happen?" Miguel Mateos Muñoz, Unicef's spokesperson in Bangladesh, puts it down to a "perfect storm" of several factors. Firstly, there were alleged delays in vaccine orders. Bangladesh has seen years of political turmoil, with student-led protests in 2024 toppling the country's authoritarian leader, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Unicef claims the interim government, under Muhammad Yunus, delayed ordering vaccines last year, opting instead to consider new vendors and restructure how the purchases were financed. Muñoz says Unicef insisted the interim administration give themselves enough time to make the changes. "We were worr