Bangladesh: Yunus govt repeatedly ignored warnings on measles vaccine shortage

UNICEF's revelation comes amid an unprecedented measles outbreak in Bangladesh, with 481 children already having died from measles and measles-like symptoms since March 15

Dhaka: As Bangladesh grapples with an escalating measles outbreak, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said that it had repeatedly warned the country’s earlier interim government led by Muhammad Yunus – both through written communication and meetings with health ministry officials – about vaccine shortages that could trigger a major health crisis, local media reported.

Addressing a press briefing in Dhaka, Rana Flowers, UNICEF representative to Bangladesh, said that the UN agency sent five to six letters to the health authorities on the issue and raised the matter in 10 meetings during the tenure of the interim government. “From 2024, we were warning the government that the shortage of vaccines could lead to an outbreak. From 2024 to 2025 into 2026, we sent letters, and we had 10 different meetings signalling this was a problem and that orders for vaccines needed to be given. They could not,” Bangladesh’s leading newspaper The Daily Star quoted Flowers as saying.

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According to Flowers, Ted Chaiban, Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, raised concerns over vaccine shortage at a meeting with the foreign ministry during his visit to Bangladesh in August last year.

She added that the UN agency would provide evidence to assist the investigation launched by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party( BNP) led government on the measles outbreak.

On Sunday, Bangladesh’s Health Minister Sakhawat Hossain said that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government inherited an acute shortage of measles vaccines with not even a single dose in stock when Tarique Rahman took over as Prime Minister, earlier this year.

UNICEF’s revelation comes amid an unprecedented measles outbreak in Bangladesh, with 481 children already having died from measles and measles-like symptoms since March 15.

Reports suggest that nearly 66,000 cases of measles and measles-like symptoms, mostly in children, were recorded during this time, highlighting poor vaccination coverage as one of the major factors behind the spread of the disease. “It has been a serious measles outbreak in this country. We now have over 50,000 cases of measles. That is an unconfirmed number… But definitely 50,000 is a large number in anyone’s book, and it, for me, is heartbreaking,” said Flowers. For years, the government procured vaccines through UNICEF using a direct procurement method, but the Yunus-led interim government last year decided to split purchases between UNICEF and an open tender process, resulting in delays in vaccine procurement. “The failure to order vaccines was not the result of no money in the health ministry. The funding was provided by the finance ministry. The funding was in the budget… It was the decision around how to procure that had created a delay. And that will be the subject of an investigation, which I welcome,” said Flowers.

Last week, a group of protestors under the banner of ‘Socheton Nagorik Samaj’ reportedly formed a human chain in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi 27 area, calling for the trial of the former interim government’s Chief Advisor Yunus and his health advisor Nurjahan Begum over the measles-related deaths, along with compensation for the victims’ families.