Measles Virus Genomic Surveillance Gaps during a Nationwide Outbreak, Bangladesh, 2026

Bangladesh reported a nationwide measles outbreak in April 2026 involving over 19,000 suspected cases, despite high reported first-dose vaccine coverage ([≥]95%). We assessed whether publicly available molecular data could support epidemiologic interpretation of this resurgence and evaluated broader sequence sharing practices across South Asia. We analyzed public outbreak reports, WHO/UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization Coverage (WUENIC), PubMed indexed literature, and NCBI GenBank records from nine regional countries. Public sequence visibility across the region was highly uneven. While India and Pakistan associated records dominated the public dataset, only 32 Bangladesh origin rec