Japan Announces $4.3 Million Grant for Polio Vaccines in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Japan has announced a new US$4.3 million grant to procure essential oral polio vaccines for Pakistan, as part of its continued support for the country’s polio eradication efforts. The funds will buy more than 28 million vaccine doses for nationwide immunisation campaigns in 2027.
28 million doses for the 2027 campaigns
According to a press release issued by the Japanese embassy on Friday, the grant will go to the Pakistan Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI). It is an increase on last year’s US$3.5 million grant, which paid for more than 24 million doses for this year’s campaigns. Since 1996, Japan has contributed more than US$248 million in grants and loans through UNICEF to Pakistan’s polio programme.
Cases falling, but the virus is not gone yet
Pakistan is one of only two countries in the world — the other is Afghanistan — where wild poliovirus transmission has not yet been interrupted. Even so, the progress is clear: cases fell from 74 in 2024 to 31 in 2025, and nine have been reported so far in 2026, the latest a seven-month-old boy in Khyber district reported on November 6.
Target: interrupt transmission by the end of 2027
Japan’s ambassador to Pakistan, Akamatsu Shuichi, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to supporting Pakistan’s health priorities. Ayesha Raza Farooq, the Prime Minister’s focal person on polio eradication, said the new grant would play a critical role in procuring and delivering vaccines. The government, working with its international partners, has drawn up the National Emergency Action Plan 2026-27 under the Roadmap to Zero, with the aim of interrupting poliovirus transmission by the end of 2027.