KARACHI: Pakistan’s polio eradication program confirmed a new case of the disease in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, bringing the total count to eight as the nationwide drive to inoculate millions of children continues.
Pakistan launched a campaign earlier this week to vaccinate over 45 million children against polio. The country reported 74 cases in 2024 and has planned three major vaccination drives in the first half of this year.
The current campaign is the second of 2025, with a third set to begin from May 26 to June 1.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health Islamabad has confirmed a polio case from District Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the lab said in a statement, adding this was the third case from the province this year.
It also urged parents to ensure that their children receive repeated doses of the polio vaccine to protect them from the disease.
On Wednesday, two security officials assigned to protect a polio vaccination team were killed in a gun attack in the Teri area of Mastung, in the southwestern Balochistan province.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the last polio-endemic countries in the world. In the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 cases annually, but by 2018, the number had dropped to eight. Six cases were reported in 2023 and only one in 2021.
Pakistan’s polio eradication 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 cover for Western espionage.
Militant groups have also repeatedly targeted and killed polio vaccination workers. Last week, gunmen attacked a vehicle and abducted two polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
On April 21, a militant was killed when a police team escorting a polio team on the outskirts of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district, responded to a gun attack.
Pakistan confirms new polio case in northwest, bringing 2025 total to eight
https://arab.news/5gt2x
Pakistan confirms new polio case in northwest, bringing 2025 total to eight
- The country has launched a week-long anti-polio drive to immunize over 45 million children
- Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic countries throughout the world
Pakistan puts border districts on high alert amid Iran protests — official
- The development comes as Iranian authorities try to suppress protests over faltering economy, with over 2,600 killed
- Militancy in Balochistan has declined following the return of nearly 1 million Afghans, the additional chief secretary says
QUETTA: Pakistan has heightened security along districts bordering Iran as violent protests continue to engulf several Iranian cities, a top official in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province said on Thursday, with authorities stepping up vigilance to guard against potential spillover.
The development comes as Iranian authorities try to suppress protests, which began late last month over the country’s faltering economy and the collapse of its currency, with more than 2,600 killed in weeks of violence in the Islamic republic.
The clampdown on demonstrations, the worst since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, has drawn threats from the United States (US) of a military intervention on behalf of the protesters, raising fears of further tensions in an already volatile region.
Pakistan, which shares a 909-kilometer-long border with Iran in its southwest, has said that it is closely monitoring the situation in the neighboring country and advised its citizens to keep essential travel documents with them amid the unrest.
“The federal government is monitoring the situation regarding what is happening in Iran and the provincial government is in touch with the federal government,” Hamza Shafqaat, an additional chief secretary at the Balochistan Home Department, told
Arab News in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
“As far as the law and order is concerned in all bordering districts with Iran, we are on high alert and as of now, the situation is very normal and peaceful at the border.”
Asked whether Islamabad had suspended cross-border movement and trade with Iran, Shafqaat said trade was ongoing, but movement of tourists and pilgrims had been stopped.
“There were few students stuck in Iran, they were evacuated, and they reached Gwadar,” he said. “Around 200 students are being shifted to their home districts.”
SITUATION ON PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN BORDER
Pakistan’s Balochistan province has long been the site of an insurgency by ethnic Baloch separatists and religiously motivated groups like the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Besides Iran, the province shares more around 1,000-kilometer porous border with Afghanistan.
Islamabad has frequently accused Afghanistan of allowing its soil for attacks against Pakistan, an allegation denied by Kabul. In Oct., Pakistan and Afghanistan engaged in worst border clashes in decades over a surge in militancy in Pakistan. While the neighbors agreed to a ceasefire in Doha that month, relations between them remain tensed.
Asked about the government’s measures to secure the border with Afghanistan, Shafqaat said militancy in the region had declined following the return of nearly 1 million Afghan nationals as part of a repatriation drive Islamabad announced in late 2023.
“There is news that some of them keep on coming back from one border post or some other areas because we share a porous border and it is very difficult to man every inch of this border,” he said.
“On any intervention from the Afghanistan side, our security agencies which are deputed at the border are taking daily actions.”
LAW AND ORDER CHALLENGE
Balochistan witnessed 167 bomb blasts among over 900 militant attacks in 2025, which killed more than 400 people, according to the provincial government’s annual law and order report. But officials say the law-and-order situation had improved as compared to the previous year.
“More than 720 terrorists were killed in 2025 which is a higher number of operations against terrorists in many decades, while over a hundred terrorists were detained by law enforcement agencies in 90,000-plus security operations in Balochistan,” Shafqaat said.
The provincial government often suspended mobile Internet service in the southwestern province on various occasions last year, aimed at ensuring security in Balochistan.
“With that step, I am sure we were able to secure hundreds of lives,” Shafqaat said, adding it was only suspended in certain areas for less than 25 days last year.
“The Internet service through wireless routers remained open for the people in the entire year, we closed mobile Internet only for people on the roads because the government understands the difficulties of students and business community hence we are trying to reduce the closure of mobile Internet.”
