By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The health minister on Thursday inaugurated the final nationwide polio vaccination drive of 2025, a push to immunise more than 45 million children under 5 in a country that, along with Afghanistan, remains one of the last holdouts where the virus is endemic.
The campaign, scheduled to run from Dec. 15 to Dec. 21, comes as officials reported a decline in cases this year, with 30 infections confirmed so far compared with 74 in 2024. Most of those, 19, were in the restive province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including 16 in its southern districts, where security issues have left some 200,000 children without shots.
“We have succeeded in reducing polio cases in the country,” Health Minister Mustafa Kamal said at a ceremony in the capital, emphasising the government’s resolve to wipe out the virus by year’s end. He appealed to all sectors of society to contribute, urging elected officials to film themselves administering drops to family members as a way to build public trust.
The minister warned that the virus persists in more than half the country, including major cities like Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore. He called on religious scholars to support the effort and implored citizens to ignore “any negative propaganda” against it.
More than 400,000 frontline workers will fan out across provinces during the drive, according to the National Emergency Operation Center, which coordinates polio eradication. Punjab aims to reach over 23 million children, Sindh more than 16 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over 7.2 million and Balochistan more than 2.6 million. In Islamabad, the target is upward of 400,000. “I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to parents and caregivers,” Kamal said in remarks released by the polio program. “When our polio vaccinator knocks at your door, I urge you to welcome them in and ensure that every child under five in your house receives two drops of this essential vaccine.”
The latest case was detected on Oct. 21 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Torghar district. Last year, the virus surfaced in about 90 districts, highlighting the challenges in a nation where cases spiked sharply from just six in 2023 and one in 2021.
Polio, a highly infectious virus with no cure, can lead to permanent paralysis. Prevention relies on multiple rounds of oral vaccines during campaigns, supplemented by routine immunisations. This drive follows a recent effort from Nov. 17 to 29 that targeted measles, rubella and polio in 89 high-risk districts, reaching 22.9 million children. Pakistan has made strides since the 1990s, when annual cases topped 20,000, dropping to eight by 2018. But setbacks persist. Militants and religious extremists have targeted vaccination teams and their guards in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, while floods and political turmoil have impeded access to remote areas.
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