KARACHI: Pakistan on Wednesday said its first nationwide polio vaccination drive of 2026 was continuing for a third day, with health workers having immunized more than 26.8 million children amid a decline in reported cases of the crippling disease.

The campaign, being conducted simultaneously in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, comes after Pakistan reported 31 polio cases in 2025, a significant drop from 74 cases in 2024, which officials had described as alarming.

More than 400,000 polio workers are going door to door across the country to administer oral polio drops to children, the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said.

“More than 26.8 million children have been vaccinated nationwide in the first two days of the campaign,” it said in an update, urging parents to cooperate with vaccination teams and ensure their children receive the drops.

According to the statement, more than 14.5 million children have been vaccinated in Punjab, 5.88 million in Sindh, 4.32 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and around 1.28 million in Balochistan.

Vaccination figures also included nearly 294,000 children in Islamabad, more than 165,000 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 446,000 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Health authorities warned that polio is an incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis, stressing that sustained immunization efforts were essential to prevent its spread.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic, and both have stepped up coordinated vaccination drives in recent years amid concerns about cross-border transmission.