Over 19.6 million children vaccinated in first three days of polio drive
File photo: A health worker vaccinates a two-year-old child during a polio campaign in Tehsil Fateh Jang, Punjab (CDC Public Health Image Library, public domain). The photo is not from this week's campaign.
Pakistan’s fight against polio got a big boost this week — the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) says more than 19.6 million children have received polio drops in the first three days of the country’s ongoing sub-national campaign.
How long will the drive run?
The seven-day campaign began on Monday, 2 November, and will continue until 8 November. It aims to reach around 24 million children under the age of five across 97 selected districts, with more than 200,000 frontline workers going door to door. This is the fifth large polio drive of 2026 and the third sub-national one — the September campaign alone reached more than 29.3 million children. Federal Health Minister Syed Mustafa Kamal inaugurated the drive by administering doses at the NEOC in Islamabad.
The provincial targets
Punjab aims to vaccinate 9.278 million children in 13 districts, Sindh 6.883 million in 20 districts, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 4.808 million in 27 districts, and Balochistan 2.217 million in 31 districts.
Why eight cases still?
Pakistan has reported eight wild poliovirus cases this year — six in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two in Sindh. The latest is a 13-month-old girl from Bara tehsil in Khyber district. Last year the country recorded 31 cases. Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the last two countries in the world where wild poliovirus transmission has never been interrupted, and the national goal is a polio-free Pakistan by June 2027.
The risks run alongside
The campaign was reminded of those risks on its very first day, when four polio workers were abducted in Tank district — police accounts carried by The Express Tribune and Pakistan Today say two other workers taken in South Waziristan were later freed. The Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication, Ayesha Raza Farooq, has appealed to parents to make sure every child gets the drops, calling polio eradication a national responsibility.
