KARACHI: Pakistan reported a new polio case from the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Monday, taking the nationwide tally to 24 this year as authorities launched a fresh vaccination campaign in selected districts of the country today.
The latest case was reported from the country’s northwestern Tank district, raising the number of polio cases reported from KP this year to 16. Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has reported six cases while Punjab and northern Gilgit-Baltistan have reported one case of the infection each.
Polio is a highly infectious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. The only protection is repeated doses of oral vaccine for every child under five, along with timely routine immunizations.
“The latest polio case involves a 20-month-old girl from Union Council Ping A, District Tank,” the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme said in a statement.
Pakistan launched a phase-wise polio vaccination campaign in 99 targeted districts across the country on Monday, the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said in a statement.
The NEOC said over 240,000 polio volunteers are participating in the drive. It said more than 4.1 million children will receive the vaccine in seven high-risk districts in Punjab while more than 8.9 million children will be vaccinated in 25 high-risk districts of Sindh.
“In 26 high-risk districts of Balochistan, vaccination will be ensured for more than 2.1 million children,” the NEOC said, adding that more than 5.7 million children will be vaccinated in 27 high-risk districts of KP province.
The campaign will also cover Islamabad and two districts each of Azad Kashmir and GB, while it was postponed in nine districts of Punjab last week due to floods.
The NEOC urged parents to cooperate with polio teams and complete the immunization timely.
“Ensure that all your children under five years of age are given the polio drops,” the statement said. “Complete the routine immunization schedule for your children on time to protect them from polio and other diseases.”
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic.
The country made significant progress in curbing the virus, with annual cases dropping from around 20,000 in the early 1990s to just eight in 2018. Pakistan reported six cases in 2023 and only one in 2021, but the country saw a sharp resurgence in 2024 with 74 cases recorded.
Pakistan’s polio program began in 1994, but efforts to eradicate the virus have been repeatedly undermined by vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners who claim that immunization is a foreign plot to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western espionage.
Militant groups have also frequently targeted polio vaccination teams and the security personnel assigned to protect them, often resulting in deadly attacks, particularly in KP and Balochistan.
