By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: A six-month-old boy in Karachi has tested positive for wild poliovirus, health officials have confirmed, marking the city’s first case in almost two years and the country’s seventh this year.
Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) for Polio Eradication announced the case on Monday, saying the child is from Union Council Jamali Colony in Karachi East district, in the southern province of Sindh. The infection was picked up by the national surveillance network and confirmed by the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad.
The NEOC said the child was malnourished and had fallen victim to virus circulation already present in Karachi. It is the first case reported in the city since December 2024. The NEOC said a comprehensive investigation had been launched.
“The Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) is already analysing the best science-based response to tackle and prevent further transmission, including targeted vaccination activities and support to strengthen routine immunisation,” the NEOC said in a press release.
The agency said Karachi had continued to report environmental detections of the virus throughout the year, a sign that transmission remains a threat to children despite an overall decline. Only one environmental surveillance site in the city tested positive in September, it said, but vulnerable children remain at risk while the virus circulates. Karachi has seen widespread poliovirus circulation over the past two years, though door-to-door vaccination drives and improvements in routine immunisation had helped to reduce it, according to the NEOC.
The latest case takes Pakistan’s tally for the year to seven. Authorities reported the previous case earlier this month, in the north-western district of Khyber.
“Of the seven polio cases reported this year, five are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two from Sindh,” the NEOC said. Four of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cases were in the province’s southern districts.
The count has risen steadily since the spring. In April, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was told that only one case had been recorded so far in 2026, from Sindh’s Sujawal district. The fourth case was reported in September in Bannu, in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by the poliovirus, which mainly affects children under the age of five. It invades the nervous system and can cause paralysis or death. There is no cure, but it can be prevented through vaccination, and multiple doses of the oral vaccine and completion of the routine immunisation schedule are essential to giving children high immunity.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where wild poliovirus remains endemic.
The NEOC said Pakistan had cut polio cases by 99.8 per cent, from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025. The country recorded 74 cases in 2024. A World Health Organisation emergency committee statement, published in August, named southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi as areas of persistent transmission and highlighted the risk of the virus spreading across the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan has held four large-scale vaccination campaigns this year, targeting more than 45 million children, alongside smaller oral and injectable drives in high-risk areas. A subnational campaign last month reached more than 29.3 million children.
The next round will run from 2 to 8 November in 97 districts, including every district of Karachi, and aims to reach nearly 24 million children.
The campaigns have long been undermined by misinformation and vaccine refusals, as well as by attacks from militant groups, who falsely claim the vaccines are part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslim children or cause infertility.
Last month, unidentified gunmen killed two police constables who were guarding a vaccination team in Balochistan, a police official said. No group claimed responsibility.
The PEI urged parents and communities to make sure every child under five receives the polio vaccine during each campaign.
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