Measles Vaccine Misinformation: Health Minister’s Claim Debunked by Fact-Check

As Bangladesh’s measles outbreak was escalating at an alarming rate, a statement by the Health Minister sparked fresh controversy. At a press briefing in the capital on March 29, 2026, Health Minister Sardar Sakhawat Hossain Bakul claimed that no measles vaccine had been administered in the country for the past eight years, and that the last vaccination campaign had taken place eight years earlier. Amid the outbreak, the statement spread quickly among worried parents — but investigations by independent fact-checking organisations revealed a very different picture.

Fact-checking organisation DismissLab examined the minister’s claim and published an investigative report clearly showing that it was not accurate. Widespread criticism has followed from various quarters over a minister responsible for such a sensitive portfolio publicly presenting incorrect information about the country’s immunisation programme. The issue is not just public confusion — misrepresenting the country’s own record on preventing a deadly disease has itself become a matter of serious concern.

Background: A Controversial Remark Amid a Growing Outbreak

After the first measles case was identified in the Rohingya camps of Cox’s Bazar in January this year, the infection spread rapidly to slum areas of Dhaka, as well as Mymensingh, Rajshahi and Chattogram. By March, the situation had turned severe, with hospitals coming under mounting pressure as child deaths were reported one after another.

It was against this backdrop that the Health Minister, addressing journalists at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre on March 29, said the number of measles patients had risen significantly and that the last vaccination campaign had taken place eight years earlier, with no government having administered the vaccine since. He also said Tk 604 crore had been allocated to procure new vaccines and that the procurement committee’s approval had already been completed.

Given the severity of the outbreak, the statement naturally drew wide attention and was extensively reported in the media. But almost as soon as it was made, independent fact-checking organisations began examining its accuracy.

Fact-Check: The Real Picture Behind the Claim

DismissLab’s investigation found that the actual picture was starkly different from the minister’s claim. A large-scale, nationwide measles-rubella vaccination campaign had in fact been carried out from December 2020 to January 2021, immunising roughly 35 million children. Data from UNICEF and the World Health Organization also confirmed that this campaign had taken place.

Beyond that major campaign, evidence also showed that measles vaccination had continued in the country through the routine Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). Experts suggested the minister may have intended to refer specifically to large-scale campaigns, but the way the claim was presented — as though no vaccine had been given at all — was directly misleading.

Fact-checkers further found that an incomplete screenshot of the Directorate General of Health Services’ website had circulated on social media, showing only 57 percent vaccination coverage for 2025. However, a Deputy Director of the Expanded Programme on Immunization confirmed that this data was incomplete; the actual first-dose measles vaccine coverage for 2025 stood at 92 percent, and second-dose coverage at 90 percent — figures also confirmed by the WHO’s Bangladesh office.

Ministry Faces Mounting Criticism

As the minister responsible for a sensitive public-health portfolio, Bakul has faced sharp criticism from multiple quarters for publicly presenting incorrect or misleading information about the country’s immunisation record. Public health experts say that flatly denying a genuine past vaccination campaign while explaining the roots of the outbreak is not just misleading — it risks undermining public trust in a way that could have real consequences.

Critics argue that rather than openly addressing the actual shortcomings — delays in vaccine procurement, gaps in stock management, or weaknesses in implementing routine programmes — the minister instead offered a claim, easily disproved on verification, that appeared aimed at shifting blame onto past governments. This, critics say, reflects a tendency toward political blame-shifting rather than a genuine effort to address the underlying problem.

The issue also drew significant media attention. Several national and international outlets cited the minister’s remarks as an example of misinformation, publishing analytical reports expressing concern over how false statements from senior government figures were compounding an already serious public-health crisis.

A Repeated Pattern: The Prime Minister Made a Similar False Claim

Barely three weeks after the health minister’s controversial remark, on April 18, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman made a strikingly similar claim at a conference of upazila health and family planning officers. He alleged that the failures of the previous two governments had resulted in children across the country not being vaccinated against measles — a lapse he described, in his own words, as an “unpardonable crime.”

This claim, too, was found to be false upon verification by fact-checking organisations. Investigations showed that large-scale measles vaccination campaigns had in fact been conducted under both of the preceding governments. In the December 2020–January 2021 campaign, Cox’s Bazar was designated a “red zone,” and roughly 800,000 children there alone were vaccinated. Clear documentary evidence of the campaign was also found in the records of various upazila parishads, including in Dinajpur and Jamalpur, as well as in the activities of the non-governmental organisation Gonoshasthaya Kendra.

Observers note that two false claims of this nature, made by the country’s two most senior officials within such a short span of time, can hardly be dismissed as an isolated slip. Instead, it is being seen as a significant example of a broader failure — a lack of fact-checking rigour and accountability in official government statements.

Public Confusion and Real-World Consequences

The minister’s statement has had a direct effect on ordinary citizens. Parents who had already had their children vaccinated against measles found themselves newly uncertain — wondering whether their child had actually received the correct vaccine, or something else administered under its name. This uncertainty has emerged at a time when both measles cases and child deaths in the country are on the rise.

Experts warn that misinformation from the highest levels of government does more than sow confusion — it risks fostering needless distrust of vaccines altogether. At a moment when sustaining public awareness and willingness to vaccinate is most critical to containing a deadly disease, false claims of this kind carry the risk of having precisely the opposite effect.

Accountability Still in Question

Analysts say that ensuring the accuracy of public statements is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of anyone leading a sensitive portfolio like the health ministry. Yet even after fact-checking organisations exposed this discrepancy, no public acknowledgement of error or corrective statement has come from the ministry — a silence that critics find even more troubling.

According to analysts, the expected response to genuine shortfalls in tackling the outbreak — delays in vaccine procurement or weaknesses in stock management — would have been an open acknowledgment paired with a clear path to solutions. Instead, presenting an unsubstantiated claim while assigning blame to past governments has only made the transparency deficit in public-health governance more glaring.

In the middle of a deadly disease outbreak, what the public needs most is reliable, verified information. But when a health minister’s own statement is disproved by independent fact-checkers, it raises a pressing question: how responsible and fact-driven are those expected to lead the response to the crisis? On a matter as sensitive as public health, there is no room to evade responsibility for misinformation — what is needed instead is transparent explanation, swift correction, and a genuine demonstration of accountability.