Health Minister Sardar Md Sakhawat Hossain has admitted failure over the deaths of children from measles and taken the blame on himself. He said the measles deaths are his responsibility and his personal failure, not the government’s, but that he is continuing to try to tackle the situation. He said this on Monday (9 November) afternoon at the opening of a newly built four-storey steel building at the Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute.
Towards the end of the event, a journalist raised the deaths of 1,200 children from measles over the past seven months and asked whether the blame lay with the interim government or the present one, saying someone had to take responsibility.
“The blame is mine. Hang me. It is my failure. But I have tried. It is not my government’s failure,” the health minister replied.
Accusing others of spreading confusion about the measles vaccine, he said: “Only 8 percent of the measles vaccine was brought from India. The rest came from Germany, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Indonesia. These vaccines were procured at low cost.”
“The measles vaccine used in the country is tested by the World Health Organization and supplied through UNICEF. UNICEF, Gavi and the World Health Organization are recognised bodies for supplying vaccines worldwide,” the health minister said.
He said that if vaccines had been bought from a private company, bypassing these bodies, and children had then died, the people of the country would not have let him live. Noting that many parents have not vaccinated or are not vaccinating their children against measles, he said: “Almost none of those now getting measles have been vaccinated. A large share of those infected are under six months old.”
He said that, at one hospital, almost none of the measles patients admitted had any record of vaccination.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report