Numbers sometimes shatter the conscience. Every day, children die due to measles and measles symptoms in the country. The total number of deaths has crossed 350 so far. This number is increasing every day. This 350 is not just a statistic; it is the silence of 350 families, 350 small coffins, 350 testimonies of state failure. The question is - who is responsible for these deaths?
There is no way to avoid this question. Because the death here is not from a rare disease, but from a disease against which there has been an effective vaccine for decades. Measles is not an unknown virus whose treatment science is still confused about. Rather, it is a disease that Bangladesh once received international praise for controlling. So why are there thousands of children in hospitals today? Why are more than 42,000 children symptomatic? Why did nearly 30,000 children have to be hospitalized? And the biggest question-why did 350 children have to die?
Measles infection has spread to fifty-six districts. A silent epidemic has now emerged in the country, where hundreds of children have already lost their lives and even the World Health Organization has expressed concern. But in the meantime, the country has been busy with politics and power calculations. The routine vaccination program has practically collapsed since mid-2024. Millions of children have been deprived of measles vaccination, and the result of that neglect is now returning in the form of deaths.
So far, no effective measures are clear. Infections are increasing, people are dying, but there is no urgent vaccination campaign, declaration of a national crisis, or visible leadership from the Health Minister. Even if the government changes, the indifference to the lives of ordinary people does not change. Other priorities than public health seem to come to the fore again and again. The most tragic aspect is that a large proportion of those infected are children under nine months old-who are deprived of the minimum protection of the state at the beginning of their lives. These deaths are not the result of a natural disaster, but rather a reflection of ruthless state negligence.
Responsibility needs to be assigned here. And to do that, we need to look at the facts, not emotions.
Bangladesh's Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) was one of the country's most successful public health initiatives. With the joint efforts of UNICEF, Gavi and the government, full vaccination coverage, which was only 2 percent in 1980, reached 82 percent in 2022-23. Polio was eradicated, tetanus was controlled, new vaccines were added. That is, the infrastructure was there, the experience was there, the international partnership was there. So where did the breakdown occur? The answer is worrying.
The decision to purchase vaccines was made by moving away from the long-tested UNICEF-based process and instead using an open tender process. The decision may have been taken on paper in the name of 'transparency' or 'competition', but in reality it turned out to be a dangerous administrative test of public health. UNICEF had warned earlier that this could delay the procurement process by up to 12 months. The National Immunization Advisory Committee had warned earlier that disruptions to child vaccination would lead to a measles outbreak. The risks were repeatedly conveyed in writing. Still, the decision did not change.
This is where the most brutal question arises - who upheld this decision when the risks were known? On what grounds? On whose advice? Who is paying the price for that decision today? Not the state's decision-makers - the children, the families, the poor.
What's even more alarming is that not only is there a shortage of vaccines, but the disease surveillance system has also failed miserably. Recently, the Ministry of Health and UNICEF officially received information about the increase in measles cases. The question is - what was happening before this? When children were being admitted to hospitals every day, where was the surveillance system? Was the reporting system from the district to the center asleep? Or was someone busy withholding information?
Time is the greatest weapon in a disease outbreak. Early detection, early prevention, early campaign-these are the things that save lives. But what happened in Bangladesh is the opposite. Information came late, decisions were made late, campaigns started late. And every day of that delay has increased the number of child deaths. There is not only administrative failure here, but also moral failure.
Why was the government's funding delayed when UNICEF tried to maintain vaccine supplies by pre-financing? Why was it discontinued when there was a previously effective system? If policy changes are to be made, can such decisions be made without public health experts, international partners, and a realistic risk assessment? The state is not a laboratory. Especially not a vaccination program.
Here another question becomes even more pressing - were the deaths of these 350 children inevitable? The data says - no. A large part of these deaths were preventable. If there had been timely vaccination, timely surveillance, timely campaigns - the situation would not have reached this level.
So who is to blame? The decision-makers who ignored the warnings. The administrations who failed to release funds on time. The system that failed to release disease information on time. The policymakers who changed the tested public health framework without proper preparation. We are also to blame-if we don't ask this question, if we just listen to the numbers and move on to the next news story.
It is now the inevitable demand of the time to investigate impartially and deeply who is actually responsible for this disaster. Which person, which administrative decision, which policy obstinacy or whose negligence caused the disruption of vaccine procurement, disease surveillance, and ultimately hundreds of innocent children to lose their lives - that truth must be brought to the fore before the nation. It is not enough to simply identify those responsible, they must be held accountable, and if necessary, brought to justice. Because if the common people, especially children, have to pay the price for the mistakes of people in state responsibility repeatedly with their lives, then it is not just a failure, but a kind of brutal betrayal.
We must set an example today so that in the future no individual, group or ruler dares to conduct such irresponsible experiments on the lives of the people. We must remember that the ruler is given power not to push people to the brink of death; but to keep every life safe, to keep every child alive. The death of a child is not just a loss to a family, it is a disaster for the state.
The death of 317 children is not a 'tragic incident'. It is the result of an unaccountable system. Now is the time for accountability, investigation, and most importantly-exemplary accountability. Because if the state cannot protect the lives of children, then development, smart Bangladesh, digital progress-all are just slogans. And history remembers very cruelly-those who remained silent in the deaths of children were also responsible.
Author: Media worker and columnist
