Pakistan aims to interrupt polio transmission within 12 months

The World Health Organization’s Regional Director Dr. Hanan Balkhy said Pakistan has a genuine opportunity to stop wild poliovirus transmission if intensified efforts are made over the next six to twelve months. The country, one of only two where polio remains endemic, has cut cases by 99.8% since the early 1990s, dropping from an estimated 20,000 annual paralytic cases to three reported in 2026.

Global health officials, including Pakistan’s Minister of State for Health Dr. Malik Mukhtar Ahmad Bharath, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq, met with the Independent Monitoring Board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Geneva and Islamabad to assess the final eradication steps. Remaining transmission is now confined to hard‑to‑reach areas of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where security challenges hinder vaccination teams. The Polio Oversight Board, the highest decision‑making body of the initiative, is working with national authorities to strengthen surveillance, which covers more than 12,500 acute flaccid paralysis reporting sites and 127 environmental sites.