ISLAMABAD: Pakistani health authorities have vaccinated over 19.6 million children in the first three days of an ongoing sub-national anti-polio drive across targeted districts, the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) said on Thursday, urging parents to cooperate with health workers and ensure their children are vaccinated.

Pakistan launched the seven-day campaign to vaccinate 24 million children across 97 targeted districts of the province on Monday. Polio is a highly contagious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis and, in some cases, death. It can be prevented through safe and effective polio vaccines.

Pakistan has reported eight wild poliovirus type 1 cases so far this year, including six in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and two in Sindh in the country’s south. The country remains one of two nations worldwide that remains endemic to the virus.

“Over 19.6 million children vaccinated during the first three days of the sub-national polio campaign,” the NEOC said. “The polio vaccination campaign will continue until 8 November across 97 selected districts of the country.”

The statement said over 200,000 polio workers are going door-to-door to vaccinated children, with over 7.5 million vaccinated against the disease in Punjab’s 13 districts so far. In Sindh’s 20 districts, 5.659 million children have been vaccinated against the disease while in the 27 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 4.002 million children have been vaccinated against the disease.

In the southwestern Balochistan province, over 1.65 million children have been vaccinated while 418,000 children have been provided the vaccine in Islamabad, the NEOC said.

Over 149,000 children have been vaccinated in Gilgit-Baltistan’s three districts and in the two districts of Azad Kashmir, over 182,000 children have been vaccinated.

The NEOC stressed that polio is an incurable disease, with vaccination being the only way to protect children from it.

“Polio workers are coming to your doorstep to protect your children,” the NEOC said. “Cooperate with them, ensure that every child under five years of age receives polio drops during the ongoing polio campaign.”

Pakistan’s polio campaigns have long been hampered by misinformation and vaccine refusals, as well as attacks by militant groups, who falsely claim polio vaccines are part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children or cause infertility.

In September, unidentified gunmen killed two police constables deployed to protect a polio vaccination team in Balochistan. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to government data, Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8 percent from an estimated 20,000 cases in the early 1990s to 31 last year.

The latest campaign will be the fifth large drive of 2026 – the third subnational – and will mobilize over 200,000 frontline polio workers.