Pakistan reports ninth polio case of 2026 as PM orders eradication plan within a week
File photo: A health worker checks the finger of a two-year-old child for the polio vaccination mark during the 2015 campaign in Tehsil Fateh Jang, Punjab (CDC Public Health Image Library, public domain). The photo is not from this week's campaign.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reported its ninth polio case of 2026 — a seven-month-old boy in Mastak Union Council, Bara tehsil, Khyber district, has tested positive for wild poliovirus, health officials confirmed on Thursday.
The virus’s Afghan link
According to the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), this is the third case from Khyber district this year and the seventh from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; Sindh has reported two. Genetic analysis of the virus in all three Khyber cases shows links with strains circulating in Afghanistan, which has reported 50 cases this year. The World Health Organization treats Pakistan and Afghanistan as a single epidemiological block — frequent movement across the border keeps carrying the virus back and forth. Sewage samples from the Peshawar block, covering Peshawar and Khyber districts, have also tested positive, a sign the virus is still circulating despite repeated campaigns.
PM’s meeting, one week to deliver a plan
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a review meeting on polio eradication on Thursday and directed the health ministry to prepare a coordinated plan with all four provinces within a week. Federal health officials and members of the polio eradication team will visit every province to meet chief ministers and chief secretaries. The prime minister said a polio-free Pakistan was a major challenge, but the country’s resolve was stronger than the challenge — and that reaching frontline workers and keeping them safe was the government’s first priority.
The drive goes on — and so do the risks
The seven-day campaign running from 2 to 8 November aims to vaccinate around 24 million children under five across 97 districts; more than 19.6 million had already received drops in the first three days. Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal has urged parents to make sure every child gets the drops, whatever their previous vaccination history. The risks are real: two policemen guarding a vaccination team were killed in Mohmand on Tuesday, and four polio workers were abducted in Tank on the campaign’s first day. Pakistan reported 31 cases last year and 74 in 2024; the national goal is a polio-free Pakistan by June 2027.
