Federal Minister for Health Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday inaugurated the final polio campaign of the outgoing year 2025, which aimed to immunise more than 45 million children across Pakistan against the debilitating disease.
The drive will be carried out from December 15 to 21, with more than 400,000 frontline polio workers taking part in the campaign.
On the occasion, the minister said that Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. So far, the country has recorded 30 polio cases, with the highest number of cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) at 19, he added.
Kamal said that the number of cases in the country had reduced from 74 to 30 in comparison to last year.
He said 200,000 children in South KP had not been immunised against polio due to the “law and order situation” in the province, he added.
Kamal further highlighted the virus’s presence in multiple cities, including Peshawar, Karachi, and Lahore. He urged parents to cooperate with the polio workers who were participating in the campaign and called on religious scholars and elected representatives to actively support in the drive.
The government remains determined to eliminate the virus in the country, he concluded.
Polio is highly contagious and incurable, with the potential to cause lifelong paralysis. Effective protection depends on repeated doses of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) for every child under five during each campaign, alongside the timely completion of all routine immunisations.
The Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) has intensified operations to sustain comprehensive coverage and ensure high-quality campaigns in vulnerable areas of the country. The National Task Force has endorsed the 2025-26 roadmap to halt transmission through multiple supplementary immunisation activities and by strengthening routine immunisation.
Polio once paralysed about 1,000 children every day in more than 125 countries. If eliminated, it would become only the second human disease ever eradicated after smallpox and could save the world more than $33 billion by the year 2100.
