ISLAMABAD: Pakistan launched a five-day polio vaccination campaign in five districts of the militancy-hit southwestern Balochistan province on Monday, state media reported, aiming to target more than 300,000 children under under the age of 10 as Islamabad intensifies efforts to eliminate the disease.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries worldwide where poliovirus remains endemic. Islamabad has made significant progress since launching its eradication program in 1994, reducing annual cases by 99.8 percent from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025, according to the country’s polio eradication program.
Pakistan has so far reported only three polio cases this year, according to official data. Two of these cases were reported in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) while one was reported from Sindh.
“A five-day special anti-polio vaccination campaign began in five districts of Balochistan today,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
The campaign is being carried out in Quetta, Chaman, Killa Abdullah, Pishin and Barshore by 1,200 polio vaccination teams, it added.
Pakistan has conducted repeated nationwide and targeted vaccination campaigns as it seeks to halt the remaining transmission of wild poliovirus. More than 45 million children under five were targeted in each of two nationwide campaigns earlier this year.
Pakistan’s polio eradication campaigns have long been hampered by misinformation and vaccine refusals, as well as militant attacks on vaccination workers and police officers assigned to protect them, particularly in KP and Balochistan.
Militant groups falsely claim polio vaccines are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children or cause infertility. These allegations have been vehemently denied by Pakistani health authorities and global bodies.
