KP reports new polio case, total in Pakistan rises to 30

The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad has confirmed a new case of wild poliovirus in Torghar district, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This is the second case in Torghar district this year.

Wild poliovirus (WPV1) was detected in a 12-month-old child of Union Council Ghari, Torghar. With this detection, the total number of polio cases in Pakistan in 2025 will reach 30, including 19 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, nine in Sindh, one in Punjab and one in Gilgit-Baltistan.

The National Polio Eradication Campaign successfully administered polio drops to more than 43.7 million children across Pakistan in the first six days, according to the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC).

Read: Anti-polio campaign reaches more than 43.7 million children across Pakistan

Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication, Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq, said: “Protecting children from polio is a shared responsibility, and I urge all parents and caregivers to open their doors to vaccinators and ensure their children receive the life-saving drops that protect them from a life-long, crippling disease.”

The polio eradication campaign in South Korea began on October 20 and will end on October 23.

In September 2025, the Pakistan Polio Program collected 127 wastewater samples from 87 districts across the country through its environmental monitoring network. Of them, 81 were negative and no poliovirus was detected, while 44 samples were positive. Two samples are currently being processed in the laboratory.

Of the total samples, Balochistan had 21 negative, 2 positive; Punjab had 22 negative, 8 positive and 1 in process; Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had 24 negative, 10 positive; Sindh had 7 negative, 21 positive and 1 in process; Islamabad had 4 negative, 1 positive; Azad Jammu & Kashmir had 3 negatives; and Gilgit-Baltistan had 1 negative result and 1 positive result.

Read more: Anti-polio campaign misses the mark

While the general trend indicates a decrease in positive detections, reflecting the impact of recent high-quality vaccination campaigns, the circulation of the virus persists in certain high-risk areas. These detections highlight the continued need for strong and targeted efforts to interrupt transmission.

The nationwide effort garnered a massive response from all regions. In Punjab, more than 23 million children were vaccinated, while Sindh protected more than 10.4 million. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa recorded more than 6.1 million vaccinations and Balochistan inoculated more than 2.58 million children.

The campaign also extended to federal and regional territories. Islamabad administered drops to more than 466,000 children, Azad Jammu and Kashmir to more than 733,000 and Gilgit-Baltistan to approximately 294,000 children.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the overall performance of the anti-polio campaign satisfactory and has noted a significant improvement in coverage of previously missed children.

Officials have reiterated that protecting the nation’s future from polio is a national responsibility. The NEOC emphasized the crucial role of parents and guardians, urging them to ensure that all children under five years of age receive these essential drops.

Also read: Pakistan launches anti-polio campaign targeting 45 million children: NEOC

Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Programme, launched in 1994, has helped reduce the annual number of polio cases by 99.6%, from an estimated 20,000 annual cases to 74 in 2024, and 29 so far this year, NEOC reported.

Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Initiative, NEOC, and its partners launched a week-long polio vaccination campaign on October 13 to vaccinate more than 45 million children in 159 districts across the country as part of ongoing efforts to protect all children from paralytic polio.

NEOC mobilized more than 400,000 trained vaccinators for this year’s fourth national polio campaign. While the campaign will end today in all other parts of the country, it will run from October 20 to 23 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The campaign came at a critical time when the resurgence of poliovirus has affected 29 children so far this year. Additionally, recent widespread flooding in Pakistan has disrupted sanitation systems, displaced families, and hampered health services for affected populations, increasing the risk of poliovirus transmission due to stagnant water and movement of populations.

Polio is a highly contagious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. The only effective protection is through repeated doses of oral polio vaccine (OPV) for each child under five years of age during each vaccination campaign, together with timely completion of all routine vaccinations.