SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Bangladesh is grappling with its largest measles outbreak in decades. As NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel reports, there are more than 67,000 suspected cases and more than 500 deaths since mid-March.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: Mohammad Kamal says, until a few weeks ago, his 2-year-old daughter was a happy, carefree child.
MOHAMMAD KAMAL: (Through interpreter) My daughter could walk and play. She was doing very well and was very cheerful.
EMANUEL: Then she got measles. It started with the classic symptoms - a fever and rash - but soon she was vomiting and had diarrhea. Kamal spoke in Bengali from his daughter's bedside.
KAMAL: (Through interpreter) Once she fell ill, she became completely bedridden. She couldn't even open her eyes.
EMANUEL: He says it's been hard to get her medical care.
KAMAL: (Through interpreter) I visited four hospitals before finally getting admitted to this one.
EMANUEL: Two hospitals near the family's home in eastern Bangladesh could not provide the level of care she needed, so the family traveled several hours to the capital, Dhaka. Kamal says the first two hospitals there were so overwhelmed they had no space for more patients. Scenes like this one are playing out all over the country. Some medical facilities have resorted to putting two measles patients in one bed. Others have patients on the floor, and still others are unable to isolate measles patients, even though the virus is among the most contagious. A United Nations report says this has all been compounded by shortages in medications and staffing. At the Bangladesh Shishu Hospital in the capital, Dr. Reaz Mobarok says administrative rooms are being converted to patient rooms.
REAZ MOBAROK: So we just say to doctors, you will move around in other places if you need to sit and discuss something. But these doctors' rooms were given to the measles children.
EMANUEL: The vast majority of the sick and dead are children under 5, and the virus can take a particular toll on malnourished and undernourished kids. That describes more than a quarter of children in Bangladesh, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, and it describes the majority of the young patients at Mobarok's hospital.
MOBAROK: Most of the children are from the poor economic class.
EMANUEL: The seed of this outbreak was planted in 2024. That's when an interim government decided to revamp the country's widely praised vaccine program. The overhaul didn't go well. There were bureaucratic delays and vaccines didn't get ordered. Rana Flowers from UNICEF spoke at a press conference.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
RANA FLOWERS: Let's be very clear. The failure to order vaccines was not the result of no money in the Ministry of Health. The funding was in the budget.
EMANUEL: But without ordering the vaccines, the supply of shots dried up and immunization campaigns were postponed. Flowers says she warned the interim government more than 10 times, telling them she was worried about an impending health crisis. But those warnings went unheeded, and in March this year, measles cases spiked. Flowers says a new government was elected in February, and this Ministry of Health has acted quickly.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
FLOWERS: It's all hands on deck, and it's the whole ministry behind this.
EMANUEL: It launched a mass vaccination campaign, reaching 18 million children in a little over a month. Flowers has been impressed.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
FLOWERS: The response was immediate. It was hard-hitting from the ministry. For that, I am very grateful.
EMANUEL: Still, experts say it could take a month or more to see the impact of the immunization campaign, and they worry the virus will spread even further in that time, especially since it's a school vacation week and many families in Bangladesh are traveling. Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR News.
DETROW: That story was co-reported with Ali Asif Shawon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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