ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has not reported a new case of polio since Feb. 10, Radio Pakistan reported on Thursday, after the country confirmed a total of 74 cases of the virus in 2024 and six this year.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the last polio-endemic countries in the world. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually but in 2018 the number dropped to eight cases. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
But Pakistan’s polio program, launched in 1994, has faced persistent challenges including vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners who claim immunization is a foreign conspiracy to sterilize Muslim children or a guise for Western espionage. Militant groups have also repeatedly targeted and killed polio vaccination workers, including earlier this week when gunmen attacked a vehicle and abducted two polio workers in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“It must be ensured that every child under five years of age is administered the polio vaccine during the anti-polio campaign starting from April 21,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was quoted by Radio Pakistan as saying after he chaired a review meeting on polio eradication in which he was informed that “not a single case of polio had been reported in the country since February 10, 2025.”
Sharif directed authorities to ensure awareness and community mobilization regarding the upcoming nationwide anti-polio campaign from Apr. 21-27, during which the vaccine will be administered to 45 million children by over 415,000 vaccinators.
“Despite challenging conditions, the workers participating in the anti-polio campaign are playing a frontline role in the fight against this disease,” the prime minister added.
Polio is a paralyzing disease with no cure and multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine — along with completing the routine immunization schedule for children under five — are crucial to building immunity against the virus.
Pakistan has planned three major vaccination campaigns in the first half of the year.
Pakistan says no new polio case reported in over two months
https://arab.news/578x6
Pakistan says no new polio case reported in over two months
- Total of 74 cases were reported in 2024, six cases confirmed this year
- Pakistan and Afghanistan are last polio-endemic countries in the world
Islamabad steps up vehicle checks to boost security as 166,000 cars get electronic tags
- Authorities say over 3,000 vehicles registered in past 24 hours as enforcement intensifies
- Extended service hours introduced to push full compliance with digital monitoring system
ISLAMABAD: Authorities in the Pakistani capital have intensified enforcement against vehicles without mandatory electronic tags with more than 166,000 cars now registered, according to data released on Sunday evening, as Islamabad moves to strengthen security and digital monitoring at key entry and exit points.
The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration introduced the electronic tagging system late last year as part of a broader effort to regulate traffic, improve record-keeping and enhance surveillance in a city that hosts the country’s main government institutions, foreign missions and diplomatic enclaves.
Under the system, vehicles are fitted with electronic tags that can be read automatically by scanners installed at checkpoints across the capital, allowing authorities to identify unregistered vehicles without manual inspections. Vehicles already equipped with a motorway tag, or m-tag, are exempt from the requirement.
“A total of 166,888 vehicles have successfully been issued M-Tags so far, including 3,130 vehicles in the last 24 hours,” the ICT administration said, according to the Excise Department.
Officials said readers installed at checkpoints across Islamabad are fully operational and are being used to stop vehicles still without tags, as enforcement teams carry out checks across the city.
To facilitate compliance, authorities have expanded installation facilities and extended operating hours. The Excise Department said m-tag installation is currently available at 17 booth locations, while select centers have begun operating beyond normal working hours.
According to Director General Excise Irfan Memon, m-tag centers at 26 Number Chungi and 18 Meel are providing services round the clock, while counters at Kachnar Park and F-9 Park remain open until midnight to accommodate motorists unable to visit during daytime hours.
Officials said the combination of enforcement and facilitation was aimed at achieving full compliance with minimal disruption, adding that operations would continue until all vehicles operating in the capital are brought into the system.
The enforcement drive builds on a wider push by the federal government to integrate traffic management, emergency response and security monitoring through technology-driven “safe city” initiatives. Last month, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi reviewed Islamabad’s surveillance infrastructure and said reforms in monitoring systems and the effective use of technology were the “need of the hour.”
Authorities have urged motorists to obtain electronic tags promptly to avoid delays and penalties at checkpoints as enforcement continues across the capital.
