mm-news-@dmin Fresh cases reported from Thatta and Badin districts confirm the National Institute of Health
- Sindh reports ninth poliovirus case of 2025: official
- Nationwide vaccination campaign set for next month.
- KP tops the list for most cases with 18 detections.
The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad. Confirmed two new poliovirus cases in Sindh, where two children have been diagnosed.
One affected child is from the Badin district and the other from the Thatta district. With these two cases, the total number of polio cases in the country for 2025 jumped to 29. Including 18 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, nine from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme, in collaboration with the Expanded Program on Immunisation (EPI). Had carried out a vaccination campaign in 25 districts of Sindh from September 1 to 7.
The campaign had initially targeted 2.1 million children, but a significant number of children in Sindh, particularly Karachi, remained unvaccinated, the sources said.
Nearly 35,000 parents in Sindh refused to vaccinate their children against poliovirus. Most of them are in Karachi, while vaccine refusals declined in KP.
The National EOC announced that a new countrywide anti-polio campaign will run from October 13 to 19, aiming to administer polio drops to more than 45.4 million children.
Pakistan is one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan. The country was close to eradicating the crippling disease in 2021 after a significant drop in the number of cases, until the recent spike in cases.
Last year, Pakistan reported a total of 74 polio cases. Of these, 27 were from Balochistan, 23 from Sindh, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
Polio is a paralysing disease with no cure, and the completion of the routine vaccination for all children under the age of five just provides them with high immunity against this terrible disease.
