At the start of last year's Bangladesh’s National Immunization Campaign against Measles, mothers lined up to have their children immunized

Bangladesh is planning what a U.N. agency calls the biggest measles vaccination campaign in history, hoping to inoculate 33.5 million children between the age of nine months and 10 years.

Officials in Dhaka say the three-week program, organized with the United Nations Children's Fund, will help curb the disease that kills an estimated 20,000 Bangladeshi children every year.

The U.N. agency's spokesman says the campaign will start on February 25 and will end on March 16. The agency says the program will involve approximately 50,000 skilled vaccinators and 750,000 volunteers.

The Bangladeshi government developed and adopted the plan of action to control measles in accordance with the current World Health Organization and UNICEF Global Measles Reduction strategy.