Islamabad (HRNW)- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that he is determined to completely eradicate the deadly disease of polio from the country. An important review meeting on polio eradication was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif. The Prime Minister praised the tireless efforts of the anti-polio team in the fight against polio. The meeting was briefed on the anti-polio measures.
The participants were informed that in the year 2026, only one case of polio has been reported in Pakistan from Sujawal district, 74 cases of polio were reported in 2024 and 31 cases in 2025. The meeting was informed that no polio case has been reported from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir this year so far.
In the first quarter of 2025, 67 districts of the country were affected by polio, which decreased to 23 in the first quarter of 2026, the national household coverage was 98 percent in all anti-polio campaigns.
The participants were informed that due to improved access and anti-polio campaigns in the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the number of children missing out on polio vaccine drops has decreased, and a significant reduction in the local spread of polio virus has been observed in Quetta Block.
The meeting was informed that polio virus was not found in 10 out of 12 environmental samples in Karachi in the month of March, which is a good development, no polio case has been reported in Dera Ismail Khan district since September 2025.
The number of union councils most affected by polio in Bannu district has decreased from 62 to 6, a strategy is being formulated at the federal and provincial levels regarding the integration of EPI and PEI.
The participants were briefed that work is also being done to link and condition the Benazir Income Support Program initiatives on polio eradication.
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