Pakistan vaccinates over 29.3 million children in nationwide polio drive amid security challenges

Pakistan’s recent polio vaccination campaign successfully reached more than 29.3 million children under five across the country, marking a significant step in eradicating the virus despite ongoing security and access challenges.

Pakistan’s polio campaign reaches more than 29.3 million children

Pakistan’s latest sub-national polio vaccination drive has reached more than 29.3 million children under five, according to the National Emergency Operations Centre, in a campaign officials say is central to the country’s effort to stop the virus from circulating in high-risk areas. The week-long exercise ran from September 21 to 27 across 113 districts, with more than 273,000 frontline workers going door to door to give eligible children two drops of oral polio vaccine.

Preliminary figures show the largest numbers of children were vaccinated in Sindh, where teams reached more than 10.14 million children across 30 districts. In Punjab, more than 9.07 million children were vaccinated in 11 districts, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounted for more than 7.21 million across 37 districts. The campaign also covered Balochistan, Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan, where officials said more than 2.32 million, 443,000 and 140,000 children, respectively, received the vaccine.

The National Emergency Operations Centre said the campaign met its target in the covered districts and that follow-up visits helped recover many of the children initially missed at home. Officials said 86% of those missed during the first round of household visits were later vaccinated, although 627,776 children, or 2.1% of the target, still need follow-up. The effort focused on children who had not received any doses before, those missed in earlier drives and families who are mobile or otherwise difficult to reach.

The campaign was run at the same time as vaccination activities in Afghanistan, a coordination step aimed at limiting cross-border spread of poliovirus. That remains a pressing concern even as Pakistan has reduced paralytic polio cases by 99.8% from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025 and six so far in 2026, according to the National Emergency Operations Centre. Four of this year’s cases have been reported from southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where access problems linked to security conditions continue to disrupt vaccination work.

Officials said the campaign was deferred in Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur because security personnel were assigned elsewhere, and that it will be held there later. The programme also renewed its appeal to parents and caregivers to make sure every child under five receives oral polio drops during each campaign, even if they have been vaccinated before, and to keep up with routine immunisation on schedule.