Desk Report:
Health Minister Sardar Md. Sakhawat Hossain has said that the government has sufficient capacity to deal with measles and dengue. He said this at a ceremony to hand over tuberculosis test kits (GeneExpert Cartridges) and anti-tuberculosis drugs for children received from the US government at the 250-bed Chest Disease Hospital in Agargaon in the capital on Thursday (April 30, 2026). US Ambassador to Bangladesh Brent T. Christensen handed over 600,000 ‘GeneExpert Cartridges’ and 11,000 courses of tuberculosis (TB) drugs for children to the minister at the ceremony.
At the ceremony, the Health Minister mentioned the activities of the previous government and said that despite having a fixed budget, proper expenditure has not been made in the health sector in the last 17 years. As a result, some artificial crises have been created. However, assuring about the current situation, he said that the government has sufficient capacity to deal with measles and dengue. There is no crisis in anything including vaccines and human resources. In the next few weeks, 100% of children aged 6 months to 59 months will be vaccinated. It takes some time for antibodies to develop in the body. Therefore, he expressed hope that the measles situation will be under control soon.
In his speech, the Ambassador mentioned that the United States is working to restore the health sector supply chain of the Bangladesh government and strengthen good governance. He assured cooperation in introducing artificial intelligence-driven digital X-rays, using next-generation gene sequencing technology, and developing child-friendly diagnostic systems to make tuberculosis detection faster and more effective in the future.
Among others, Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services, Professor Dr. Prabhat Chandra Biswas, was present at the event.
