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Officials of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Unicef Bangladesh and the World Health Organisation Bangladesh shared the information during a press conference at the DGHS yesterday.

DGHS arranged the press conference at its headquarters in the capital’s Mohakhali to disseminate the latest information about the ongoing vaccination campaign amid the measles outbreak.

Earlier, before the authorities lowered the vaccination age to six months only for the ongoing campaigns on March 30, the DGHS said 34 percent of the patients who contracted measles were below nine months old, or the age required to get the first shot.

So far, 1.09 crore children have received the vaccine during the campaign, which is 61 percent of the total targeted children, said Pravath Chandra Biswas, director general of DGHS.

“This is a very positive development. We hope that we will come down from the peak of the outbreak very soon,” he said.

Vaccination in 30 high-burden upazilas across 18 districts began on April 5, said Chiranjit Das, national professional officer (immunisation) at WHO Bangladesh.

Case reporting from these upazilas has declined sharply since April 17 and the number of cases across the country is expected to fall as the nationwide vaccination campaign continues, he said.

Asked when nationwide cases would decline, Riad Mahmud, health manager (immunisation) at UNICEF Bangladesh, said more than one crore children out of the targeted 1.8 crore have already been vaccinated, and no new infections have been reported from the 30 upazilas that have already come under vaccination.

“This gives us hope.”

In areas where vaccination is ongoing, it takes three to four weeks to see a visible impact.

“So, we expect the number of cases to decline sharply by the end of May,” he added.

The vaccination campaign in four city corporations -- Dhaka South, Dhaka North, Barishal and Mymensingh -- started on April 20 and will continue until May 20.

The nationwide campaign also began on April 20; it will end in city areas on May 20 and in the rest of the country on May 10.

Meanwhile, DGHS recorded one more suspected measles death in the 24 hours to 8:00am yesterday, taking the total number of suspected deaths to 227, Biswas said.

No confirmed death was reported during the time, meaning the confirmed deaths remained unchanged at 47.

In the last 24 hours, a total of 88 confirmed measles cases were recorded, taking the total confirmed cases to 4,944.

Some 1,318 suspected cases were recorded during the same time, taking the total suspected cases to 35,980.