A teenage girl has died of diphtheria in Sylhet. She was Jubli Begum, aged 16 years and 8 months, the daughter of Abdul Kalam of Uttar Islampur village in Fenchuganj upazila. The death has caused fresh alarm in Sylhet.
Jubli Begum was admitted to ward 8, the women’s ward of the ear, nose and throat department at Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital, on Saturday, 17 October. Tests found she had diphtheria. The doctor on duty advised admitting her to the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU), but as no bed was free, she was later advised to go to the specialised Shaheed Shamsuddin Hospital. On Sunday, 18 October, within just three or four hours, she died on the ward at Osmani Medical College Hospital.
Speaking by phone, her father Abdul Kalam said through tears that although the doctor on duty at Osmani Medical College Hospital had advised ICU admission, staff lost time before telling the family to take her to Shaheed Shamsuddin Hospital. “By then it was too late, and my daughter died,” he said. Besides Jubli, Abdul Kalam has a son and a daughter. Sylhet civil surgeon Dr Md Nasir Uddin, contacted by phone, asked to be called during office hours.
What is diphtheria?
Diphtheria is an infectious bacterial disease caused mainly by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. It usually infects the nose and throat. Without timely treatment it can block the airway and cause heart damage, nerve complications and death. Its main symptoms include a sore throat and fever, difficulty swallowing, weakness and a swollen neck, a thick grey or whitish coating inside the throat and, in severe cases, difficulty breathing. It can spread through an infected person’s sneezes and coughs. Vaccination is the most important way to prevent it.
The last major outbreak recorded was in 2017, among the Rohingya population in Cox’s Bazar. According to a World Health Organization review published in 2026, diphtheria deaths there numbered 30 in 2017, 14 in 2018 and 3 in 2019. No deaths were recorded in 2020, and none were recorded by outbreak surveillance in 2024 or 2025.
These Cox’s Bazar figures are not national figures for Bangladesh, so they cannot be read to mean that Bangladesh currently has no diphtheria deaths.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report