Alarming
ISLAMABAD
Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication (NEOC) has confirmed two new cases of wild poliovirus from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. According to NEOC, one case was reported in Bannu and another in North Waziristan, in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where access constraints continue to aid poliovirus transmission, posing a continued risk to children’s well-being.
The affected children belong to Jani Khel union council of Bannu and Garyom union council of North Waziristan districts.
Pakistan has reported three polio cases so far in 2026. Since the launch of Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Initiative in 1994, due to the medical science behind polio vaccines, Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8% – from 20,000 estimated cases in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025.
The two new cases were reported through the poliovirus surveillance network and confirmed by the WHO-accredited Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad.
While overall poliovirus transmission in the country has been declining, with cases falling from 74 in 2024 to 31 in 2025 and three so far in 2026, reflecting the impact of high-quality vaccination drives, virus circulation in southern KP persists.
