ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will launch the second nationwide anti-polio campaign of 2026 on April 13 that will continue till April 19, the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said on Monday, adding the campaign aims to vaccinate 4.5 million children aged below 5.
Polio is a highly contagious viral disease that can cause permanent paralysis, mainly in children under the age of five. Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the disease remains endemic.
Pakistan, which conducted its first nationwide polio campaign of the year in Feb., has managed to reduce polio cases by 99.8 percent, bringing them down from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025, according to the NEOC.
“Around 413,000 polio workers will perform their duties during the national polio campaign,” the NEOC said on Monday. “Children will also be provided with additional doses of Vitamin A during the polio campaign.”
Health authorities aim to vaccinate over 23 million children in Punjab, over 16 million in Sindh, over 7.2 million in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, over 2.6 million in Balochistan, more than 460,000 in Islamabad, over 228,000 in Gilgit-Baltistan, and more than 760,000 children in Azad Jammu and Kashmir during the upcoming drive.
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.
In 2025, southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounted for 17 out of the total 31 infections reported nationwide. According to health authorities, 74 cases were reported in 2024.
“It is the national responsibility of every individual to protect the future of the nation from polio,” the NEOC said, urging parents and caretakers to open their doors to vaccinators during the upcoming campaign.
