Bangladesh to host biggest measles vaccination

DHAKA, Feb 24 (Reuters) Bangladesh will inoculate some 33.5 million children in the biggest measles vaccination campaign in history, officials said.

The three-week campaign, organised along with the United Nations Children's Fund, will help curb a disease that kills about 20,000 children in impoverished Bangladesh every year.

''It will be world's biggest measles vaccination campaign,'' said an UNICEF communication official yesterday.

Children aged between 9 months and 10 years will be vaccinated during the campaign that will being on Saturday and cover 62 of the country's 64 administrative districts.

''Measles vaccine is only 85 percent efficacious when given at 9 months of age, leaving approximately 40 percent of children in each birth cohort susceptible to measles,'' a UNICEF statement said.

REUTERS SB SSC1036