By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan launched a nationwide polio vaccination drive on Monday aimed at reaching 45 million children under the age of 5, as health officials warned that recent flooding and persistent environmental detections of the virus have heightened the risk of outbreaks in vulnerable regions.
The weeklong campaign, which runs through Oct. 19 in 159 districts, comes amid concerns that some 830,000 children are missed during every such effort, according to the National Emergency Operations Center, the government body overseeing the initiative. In addition to the oral polio vaccine, children will receive a supplementary dose of Vitamin A to bolster their immunity against other diseases. In Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the campaign will be conducted separately from Oct. 20 to 23 to ensure comprehensive coverage in the region, the center said.
Officials have also emphasised the importance of the timely completion of the routine immunization schedule for all children up to 15 months. A polio program official said more than 400,000 frontline health workers, including 225,000 female vaccinators, would go door to door across Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Islamabad, ensuring no child is missed. “This campaign is especially critical,” he said. “The recent flooding across several regions has increased the risk of polio transmission and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Standing water, poor sanitation, and displacement have created conditions for the virus to spread, making it urgent to vaccinate every child under five.”
The drive follows a decline in the number of children missing vaccinations, from over 1.1 million in October 2024 to around 830,000 in May 2025, according to Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s focal person for polio eradication.
Speaking to reporters last week, she said that sustained coordination, joint planning and unified action are essential to closing immunity gaps. She noted that these efforts were particularly critical in high-risk areas such as the south Khyber Pakhtunkhwa block and Karachi, where poliovirus continued to be detected in environmental samples. In Balochistan, one of the hardest-hit provinces, polio teams will target over 2.66 million children under the age of 5 for vaccination.
Inamul Haq, the coordinator of the province’s Emergency Operations Center, said on Sunday that all arrangements for the campaign have been finalised, and 11,144 teams will participate across the province, including 825 fixed teams and 476 transit teams. He warned that the poliovirus is present in Balochistan’s environment, posing a constant threat to children’s health. “This campaign is vital to protect children from the virus and eliminate poliovirus from the environment,” he said, emphasising that parents must ensure their children receive the vaccine, as polio can cause lifelong, irreversible paralysis.
Pakistan, along with Afghanistan, remains one of the last two countries where polio is endemic, with environmental surveillance continuing to detect the virus in sewage samples despite years of intensive eradication efforts. The latest campaign underscores the government’s push to interrupt transmission, even as challenges like insecurity, vaccine hesitancy and natural disasters complicate the task.
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