Bangladesh's national childhood vaccination programme, launched as a pilot project in eight thanas across four divisions on April 7, 1979, and becoming fully operational under World Health Organization support in the mid-1980s. Coverage rose steeply over the following decades: DPT and pentavalent third-dose coverage stood at only 16 percent in 1988, but reached 69 percent by 1990, 81 percent by 2000, 90 percent by 2011 and 92 percent by 2013, a figure higher than the global average of 84 percent that year. The programme is credited with preventing an estimated 2 million deaths between 1987 and 2000 and roughly 200,000 deaths a year since, and it received the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization's best-performance award in both 2009 and 2012, making Bangladesh's Expanded Programme on Immunization one of the most widely cited success stories in global childhood immunization.
Facts
Program Statusactive, transitioning toward full domestic financing by 2030 1 Sponsoring BodyBangladesh Directorate General of Health Services, with donor support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance since 2001 1 Target Populationinfants and children receiving routine vaccination, with adolescent girls also covered for HPV vaccination since October 2023 1 Health Goalreduce child mortality from vaccine-preventable disease, originally measles, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, later expanded 1 Geographic Scope Measured ResultsBy 2018, 98 percent DTP3 coverage, 93 percent measles coverage, polio-free since 2014; under-five mortality fell from 211 per 1000 live births in 1979 toward 31 per 1000 by the mid-2020s 1 Classification
Program KindVaccination or Immunization Program 1 Connections
Delivers Practice
Entity-backed identity for the program-kind enum value this public health program already carries, resolved to a health practice by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The program-kind fact itself stays on the program unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Asia, found in there.
Sources
1. Gavi VaccinesWork: 50 years of progress, how Bangladesh chose health
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (VaccinesWork)opening paragraph, 21 May 2025 article
In 1979, the year that Bangladesh launched its national immunisation programme, 211 out of every 1,000 children born within its borders were expected to die before their fifth birthday.
section Bangladesh bets on vaccines, Ahmed 1989 recollection
he took up his first post in the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in 1989
section Towards immunisation self-sufficiency, Gavi partnership paragraph
Gavi, established in 2000 to help get children in the poorest countries protected with vaccines, has been supporting immunisation in Bangladesh since 2001
section Bangladesh bets on vaccines, HPV paragraph
in October 2023, Bangladesh launched the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to protect girls from cervical cancer
section Bangladesh bets on vaccines, six-disease paragraph
About a third of those deaths were attributable to the six diseases targeted by the country's vaccination programme at that time: measles, tuberculosis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis
section Bangladesh bets on vaccines, Ahmed retirement paragraph
Bangladesh had achieved 98% coverage with the third dose of the basic diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis-containing vaccine (DTP3); measles coverage was, and remains, at 93%,and the country has been officially polio-free since 2014.
section Towards immunisation self-sufficiency, closing paragraph
is on track to transition out of Gavi support by 2030
Program classification, entity description sentence
Bangladesh's national childhood vaccination programme, launched as a pilot project in eight thanas across four divisions on April 7, 1979, and becoming fully operational under World Health Organization support in the mid-1980s.
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