Pakistani health authorities launched the year’s first national anti-polio drive on Monday, to vaccinate over 45 million children against the virus, state media reported as Islamabad aims to eliminate the disease.
Eliminating poliovirus remains a critical health initiative of Pakistan, which along with Afghanistan, is one of only two countries worldwide where the virus is endemic. Pakistan reported 31 cases of polio in 2025, which authorities say is a significant decline from the alarming 74 cases of the disease it reported in 2024.
Prime Minister’s Focal Person for Polio Eradication Ayesha Raza Farooq announced last month that the anti-polio vaccination campaign will be conducted across the country from Feb. 2 to 8, during which over 45 million children under the age of five will be targeted. She said a total of 400,000 trained health volunteers will go door-to-door to administer polio drops to children.
“A varied duration anti-polio campaign in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will begin from tomorrow [Monday],” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Sunday. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah kicked off the anti-polio vaccination drive in Karachi by administering polio drops to children.
“The only way to rid ourselves of this virus is this: we have to pull it out from its root and throw it away,” Shah said.
The National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC), in an earlier statement, said six national polio campaigns were conducted across the country in 2025. The NEOC urged parents to fully cooperate with polio teams and ensure their children receive polio drops.
Polio workers and their security escorts have repeatedly been targeted in militant attacks, particularly in parts of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan provinces, complicating efforts to vaccinate children in remote areas.
A gun attack targeting a polio vaccination team in Pakistan’s northwestern Bajaur district in December 2025 left one police constable and a civilian dead.
Natural disasters, such as floods, have also disrupted vaccination campaigns in recent years.