Bangladesh under the world biggest measles vaccination campaign will vaccinate 34.8 million children as the disease kills around 20,000 children annually in the country, a Health Ministry official said Tuesday.

The campaign to be funded by the United Nations Children's Fund and the Bangladeshi government will be carried out on Feb. 25 till March 16 through 260,000 centers to be opened in schools, hospitals and other government buildings, the official said demanding not to be named.

He said more than 50,000 workers with 746,000 volunteers will work for the vaccination. Hundreds of thousands of people will take part in the world's biggest anti-measles drive to be held across the country.

He said 1.3 million children were given first dose in the first stage of the project in September last year.

The 12 million dollar campaign aims to eradicate once for all the disease from this South Asian nation of 140 million, of whom 50 percent lives on less than 1 dollar a day.

The developed nations routinely vaccinate children against measles but the disease still kills around 500,000 children in the world every year, the official said.

Source: Xinhua