Health & Food
Health ministry orders door-to-door vaccination drive
Field workers have been told to identify every eligible child and close gaps between rural, urban and hard-to-reach areas. The directive follows an independent review of Bangladesh’s immunisation and disease-surveillance programme.
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From 15 October 2026 — Daily Brief
Bangladesh’s health minister has instructed field workers to visit households and neighbourhoods to identify children who have missed routine vaccinations.
Sardar Sakhawat Husain said the programme must close coverage gaps between urban and rural areas and reach remote communities. He was speaking at the conclusion of an independent review of the Expanded Programme on Immunization and vaccine-preventable disease surveillance.
The review, supported by the World Health Organization and partners, examined programme management, staffing, vaccine supply, cold-chain systems, service delivery, safety monitoring and outbreak preparedness across all eight divisions.
Bangladesh’s severe measles outbreak has made the exercise urgent. National coverage figures can conceal clusters of unvaccinated children, particularly in fast-growing urban settlements, mobile populations and hard-to-reach areas. Door-to-door identification can help, but only if teams can offer a reliable follow-up appointment or vaccination service.
Officials should publish the review’s recommendations and a district-level action plan when the draft report is completed. The most useful measures will be the number of missed children found, vaccinated and retained in the schedule—not simply the number of household visits. Adequate vaccine stocks, cold-chain capacity and accurate records will determine whether the campaign closes the gap.