By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan confirmed two additional polio cases on Monday, bringing the 2025 tally to 21, as authorities prepare for a major vaccination campaign to stem the virus in high-risk areas plagued by low immunisation rates and misinformation.
The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad detected the infections in a 72-month-old girl from Union Council Pattan in Kohistan Lower district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and a 21-month-old girl from Union Council Matli-2 in Badin district, Sindh.
“With these detections, the total number of polio cases in Pakistan in 2025 has reached 21–including 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, six from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan,” Pakistan’s polio program said in a statement.
Polio is a highly infectious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. Experts say the only effective protection is through repeated doses of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) for every child under the age of five, alongside timely completion of all routine immunizations.
Despite significant progress, the continued detection of polio cases shows that children remain at risk in areas with low vaccine acceptance. To address the threat, a Sub-National Polio Vaccination Campaign will take place from September 1 to 7, 2025, targeting more than 28 million children under the age of five in 99 districts across all provinces and regions.
The campaign in Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be conducted from September 15. The goal is to ensure every child in these districts receives the vaccine to protect them from the lifelong consequences of polio. This campaign is part of ongoing efforts to quickly strengthen immunity among children and close existing protection gaps.
“Parents and caregivers are strongly urged to ensure their children receive the polio vaccine during this and every campaign,” the statement said. Over the past year, the polio program has conducted six high-quality vaccination campaigns, four of them nationwide, each reaching over 45 million children.
Islamabad made significant progress in curbing the virus, with annual cases dropping from around 20,000 in the early 1990s to just eight in 2018. Pakistan reported six cases in 2023 and only one in 2021 but the country saw an intense resurgence of the poliovirus in 2024, with 74 cases reported.
Efforts to eradicate the virus have been repeatedly undermined by vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners, who claim immunization is a foreign plot to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western espionage. Militant groups have frequently targeted polio vaccination teams and the security personnel assigned to protect them, particularly in KP and Balochistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic.
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