ISLAMABAD: The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has warned that shrinking international funding is threatening a push to end poliovirus transmission in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the world’s only remaining polio-endemic countries, Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) said on Friday.
Polio is a highly contagious viral disease that can cause irreversible paralysis and, in some cases, death, but can be prevented through repeated doses of oral vaccines. Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries worldwide where the disease is still endemic.
Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8 percent – from 20,000 estimated cases in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025, and three so far in 2026, thanks to periodic nationwide vaccination campaigns.
Pakistan this week hosted a high-level delegation of the GPEI’s Polio Oversight Board (POB) and reiterated its commitment to ending the global and regional public health threat of paralytic polio, emphasizing that the next six months will be critical for taking a further step toward ending polio in Pakistan and worldwide.
“While emphasizing that the shrinking global funding landscape is narrowing the window to interrupt poliovirus transmission in the world’s two remaining endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the delegation members reiterated the importance of sustaining investment in polio eradication while strengthening essential routine immunization to protect the hard-won gains achieved over the past three decades,” the NEOC said.
The delegation, led by the Chair of the POB and Rotary International PolioPlus Committee Mike McGovern, met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Health Minister Mustafa Kamal and Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq.
The POB is the highest decision-making and oversight body of the GPEI, the global public-private partnership working with national governments and partners to eradicate polio globally.
“The government is taking every possible measure to protect Pakistan’s children from polio and secure their future,” PM Sharif was quoted as telling the delegates.
Health Minister Kamal shared that the strength of the polio response has been supplemented with enhanced inter-provincial coordination, complete government oversight and strengthened health service delivery to protect children from all vaccine-preventable diseases.
“Polio eradication investments continue to strengthen the broader immunization and primary health care system. Closer integration between the Expanded Programme on Immunization and the Polio Programme is helping improve reach, particularly for zero-dose and under-immunized children. The same systems that help us interrupt poliovirus transmission are also strengthening protection against measles, hepatitis, and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” he said.
Farooq, the prime minister’s focal person for polio eradication, underscored the progress achieved, although cautioning that “sustained concerted efforts will be crucial to preserve hard-fought gains” and seize the opportunity to eradicate polio.
“This moment demands relentless, unwavering commitment and a shared determination to avoid complacency. The window to stop polio is narrowing, and every missed child puts progress at risk,” she said. “Maintaining our efforts is essential to prevent new resurgences and seize the opportunity to eradicate poliovirus once and for all.”
The delegation reaffirmed its support for Pakistan’s Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) and ongoing efforts to further integrate polio operations and routine vaccination.
