ISLAMABAD:
Another polio case was confirmed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) district of North Waziristan on Tuesday, bringing the total number of polio cases reported in 2025 to 31.
However, compared to 2024, the incidence of the disease has decreased by 59.5% over the past year. The significant reduction is due to Pakistan’s decision to regulate unorganized cross-border movement with Afghanistan, health officials said based on surveillance data.
Authorities have said tighter controls on the movement of people and goods across the border have strengthened surveillance systems and reduced opportunities for the virus to spread.
Official figures show that polio cases fell by 59.5% in 2025, with transmission now limited to fewer geographic areas compared to previous years.
This confinement allowed vaccination teams to concentrate their efforts in high-risk districts, thus improving coverage and monitoring of vulnerable populations.
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has long posed a challenge to polio eradication due to frequent and largely unmanaged population movements.
Afghanistan continues to report circulation of wild poliovirus, and repeated cross-border travel has historically contributed to reimportation of the virus into Pakistan.
Children from mobile families often miss routine immunizations and multiple vaccine doses, increasing the risk of continued transmission.
Health officials said better regulation of cross-border movements and the repatriation of undocumented Afghan immigrants had reduced that risk.
Thanks to more structured border management, vaccination at transit points has improved and mobile populations are now easier to track. This has helped close long-standing gaps in vaccination coverage.
Additionally, surveillance systems have become more effective as population flows are now better documented. Officials note that environmental sampling and tracking of suspected cases have improved, allowing for faster detection and response.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Health (NIH) on Tuesday confirmed a case of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in North Waziristan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
This is the fifth case reported from the district in 2025, taking the total number of polio cases in Pakistan for the past year to 31.
Poliovirus was detected in a 4-month-old girl from Spinwam-2 Union Council. The child’s symptoms appeared in December and subsequent samples taken from her tested positive for WPV1, the NIH Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication reported this week.
Last year, Pakistan reported 20 cases in KP, nine in Sindh, one in Punjab and one in Gilgit-Baltistan. Southern KP accounted for more than half of Pakistan’s WPV1 cases in 2025, with 17 of the country’s 31 cases reported in the region.
Ongoing security concerns have limited continued access of polio teams to parts of southern KP, including North Waziristan, leading to persistent immune deficiencies and leaving children vulnerable to the paralytic disease.
It is essential to ensure that every child receives the polio vaccine during each door-to-door campaign and that they have received all their routine immunization doses.
The Pakistan Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) is also adopting innovative complementary approaches, particularly in southern KP, such as involving local influencers in campaigns and providing integrated services such as nutrition, routine immunization and other health services to boost children’s immunity.
Polio is a highly contagious and incurable disease that can cause permanent paralysis. The only effective protection is repeated doses of oral polio vaccine (OPV) to every child under five years of age during each vaccination campaign, as well as timely routine vaccination.
