ISLAMABAD: Pakistani health authorities have vaccinated more than 42 million children in an ongoing anti-polio drive this week, the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said on Friday.

Polio is a highly infectious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. The only effective protection is through repeated vaccination for every child under five.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where polio remains endemic. Last year, Pakistan reported 31 polio cases, a significant drop from 74 cases in 2024.

Authorities on Feb. 2 began the first anti-polio drive of this year which will continue till Feb. 8 and aims to reach 45.4 million children, aged below five, across the South Asian country.

“The first national polio campaign of 2026 continues for the fifth day across the country,” the NEOC said on Friday. “Vaccination of more than 42.2 million children across the country has been completed in four days.”

Of these 42.2 million, more than 22.4 million children have been vaccinated in Punjab, 9.585 million in Sindh, 6.764 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and over 2 million children have been inoculated in Balochistan.

It said more than 454,000 children were vaccinated in the federal capital of Islamabad, 261,000 in Gilgit-Baltistan and over 673,000 in Azad Kashmir.

“More than 400,000 polio workers are going door to door to administer polio drops to children,” the NEOC statement read. “Parents and communities are appealed to cooperate fully with polio workers.”

Another campaign is being simultaneously run in Afghanistan, according to the NEOC.

Pakistan reported six cases in 2023 and only one in 2021, but the country saw a sharp resurgence in 2024.

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.