For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
Rumeen Farhana, an independent MP from Brahmanbaria-2, has raised the issue of child deaths from measles, vaccine shortages, unpaid salaries of health workers, and field-level preparedness in parliament after a deadly outbreak across Bangladesh.
In response, Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Husain said that there was indeed a vaccine shortage, but the government has managed it; the stock is now "stable" and an emergency vaccination programme has kicked off, bdnews24.com reports.
In a notice calling attention to urgent matters of public importance in the session chaired by Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad on Wednesday, Rumeen said that the situation has become dire due to the gaps created in the regular vaccination programme in the post-COVID-19 period, nine-month arrears of vaccine transporters, manpower shortages in various districts, and the spike in infections in densely populated areas.
In response, the minister said that the measles vaccination programme has started from Apr 5, new vaccine procurement has been arranged by reorganising the unused Tk 6.04 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the programme will be launched across the country before the scheduled time.
Rumeen told parliament that the resurgence of measles has become a major obstacle to achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
“According to the WHO [World Health Organization], to prevent a measles epidemic in a community, more than 95 percent of children need to be given two doses of the MR vaccine,” she said.
Rumeen said the virus is taking advantage of the lack of regular vaccination programmes in the post-COVID-19 period.
She added that no new vaccine orders have been placed in the one and a half years of the interim government, and workers involved in vaccine transportation have not been paid for the past nine months.
She claimed in parliament that there is a shortage of health workers involved in the vaccination programme in about 35 districts. At the same time, she highlighted the warnings of UNICEF and the World Health Organization, saying that measles infections have increased by 79 percent worldwide and are also affecting Bangladesh.
Referring specifically to Dhaka, its surrounding areas and densely populated urban slums, Rumeen said that these places have now become measles hotspots. In response, the health minister acknowledged that porters involved in vaccine transport have not been paid for nine months.
The minister said, “Yes, the porters haven’t gotten paid for the last nine months. That’s true.”
However, he said that a meeting was held on this issue after the BNP government took charge and added: "We will start paying the salaries of the porters in phases within a day or two."
The health minister also said that although there is a staff shortage in the health sector as a whole, the capacity to run vaccination programmes at the field level has been maintained. The government is also moving towards recruiting new health workers.