Health authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will run a targeted polio drive across 78 union councils in Peshawar and Khyber districts from October 26 to 31. The move follows the detection of a polio case in a child from Khyber. Children aged five to 10 will receive both injectable polio vaccine and oral drops, according to officials of the provincial polio eradication programme.
The drive will cover 48 union councils in Peshawar and 30 in Khyber, with a target of reaching 189,000 children. Officials said 2,448 vaccination teams have been formed for the effort, and schools are among the sites that will be visited.
School-based vaccination alongside the routine campaign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The targeted drive will run at the same time as a routine anti-polio campaign across the province, which will reach children between four months and five years old. Officials said schools, health facilities and outreach points will all serve as vaccination sites during the October work.
Using schools is meant to help teams reach eligible children who could be missed during house-to-house visits. In Peshawar and Khyber, the booster campaign will use a needle-free jet injector to give fractional doses of inactivated polio vaccine, known as IPV, to eligible children. Vaccination will take place at Expanded Programme on Immunisation centres, outreach sites and schools.
Health authorities have repeatedly asked parents to make sure their children receive every recommended dose during each campaign and stay on their routine immunisation schedules. A separate targeted campaign is planned for southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in December. Officials said polio transmission has persisted there, and security-related access problems have made it hard for teams to reach every child consistently.
Seven wild poliovirus cases recorded in Pakistan this year
The National Emergency Operations Centre has reported seven cases of wild poliovirus in Pakistan so far in 2026. Five were recorded in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and two in Sindh, according to the centre.
The first case of the year was confirmed in a four-year-old child from Bello union council in Sujawal district, Sindh. Officials later reported further cases in the following locations:
- Bannu and North Waziristan, where two more cases were reported
- Additional cases in Bannu
- Khyber district, in the Peshawar-Khyber transmission area
According to the polio programme, four of the five cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were found in southern parts of the province. The fifth was reported from Khyber district. The latest case in Sindh was confirmed in a six-month-old boy from Jamali Colony in Karachi East, and the national programme announced it on October 19. It was the first case reported in Karachi since December 2024.
Karachi infection and nationwide campaign planned for November
The Khyber case involves a seven-year-old boy from Ghundi-A union council in Jamrud tehsil. The Pakistan Polio Eradication Initiative said the National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed the case on October 5. The child lives in Peshawar and developed facial paralysis, which prompted health authorities to step up vaccination in the Peshawar-Khyber area, where the virus remains a risk.
The Karachi infection was picked up through the country’s polio surveillance network. It was confirmed by the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health in Islamabad. The national programme said an investigation into the case had been launched and that officials were assessing extra vaccination activities and steps to strengthen routine immunisation.
The programme said the number of cases has fallen compared with earlier years, with 31 cases reported in 2025 against 74 in 2024. However, continued detection of the virus shows that transmission has not been stopped. The programme stressed that polio has no cure and can cause permanent paralysis, but it can be prevented through vaccination.
A nationwide campaign is scheduled for November 2 to 8. Nearly 24 million children under five are expected to receive oral polio vaccine in 97 districts, including all districts of Karachi. The polio eradication programme said the September subnational campaign reached more than 29.3 million children.
