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Infants under six months of age are contracting measles in Bangladesh on a larger scale, raising serious concerns among epidemiologists and pediatricians. At Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute in the capital, 18 percent of children admitted with measles were younger than six months, an age group previously believed to be protected by maternal immunity.
For years, it was widely understood that babies received temporary protection against diseases such as measles through antibodies passed from their mothers during pregnancy and through breastfeeding. Based on this assumption, Bangladesh’s national immunization program scheduled the first measles vaccine at nine months of age.
However, recent observations have shown that children younger than nine months are increasingly becoming infected. As a result, this year’s nationwide Measles-Rubella vaccination campaign was expanded to include infants aged six months and older. Even so, health officials are now seeing cases among babies younger than six months.
According to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), as of Saturday, July 18, a total of 116,710 people with suspected measles symptoms had sought treatment at government and private hospitals across the country this year. Among them, 14,318 cases have been laboratory-confirmed as measles. During the same period, 689 people with suspected measles symptoms died, while 95 deaths were confirmed to have been caused by measles. On Saturday alone, the DGHS reported four deaths associated with suspected measles.
The DGHS does not routinely publish age-specific national data showing which age groups are most affected or have the highest mortality rates. However, statistics from Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute provide some insight.
Between January and July 18, the hospital admitted 1,770 children with suspected measles from 53 districts across Bangladesh. Of these, 334 children were younger than six months, while 192 were older than five years.
The hospital also recorded 368 laboratory-confirmed measles cases during the same period. Among those, 66 infants were under six months old, and 36 children were over five years of age.
Under Bangladesh’s Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), children receive the first dose of the measles vaccine at nine months and the second dose at 15 months. During this year’s vaccination campaign, children aged six months to five years were included. However, hospital data show that many infections are occurring among children younger than six months and older than five years, who together account for nearly 28 percent of admitted measles cases.