ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded a sharp decline in the proportion of environmental samples testing positive for poliovirus in the first half of 2026, with the positivity rate dropping to 13.1 percent from 48.1 percent a year earlier, the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) said this week, reflecting gains in the country’s campaign to interrupt transmission of the disease.
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. However, Pakistan along with Afghanistan remains one of the last two countries where polio still remains endemic.
The NEOC said this week that health authorities last month collected 127 environmental samples as part of virus surveillance across the country, out of which 117 were declared negative for polio virus, while the presence of poliovirus was confirmed in 10 samples.
“Environmental surveillance, vaccination coverage and outreach are being further strengthened to eradicate polio,” the NEOC said in a statement. “Efforts will continue to ensure the provision of polio vaccine to every child across the country.”
In Pakistan, polio eradication efforts have suffered setbacks from militant attacks that have killed hundreds of police officers and health workers over the past decade as part of a campaign against the Pakistani state.
There is a raft of misinformation circulating about the vaccine in rural Pakistan, including that it is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plot to stop Muslims from having children.
In its statement, the NEOC said every child under the age of five must be given polio drops during every anti-polio campaign.
“Parents, community leaders, scholars and doctors should participate fully in this national mission,” it urged, calling anti-polio vaccinators “national heroes” of Pakistan.
