Pak-Afghan Polio Teams Gear Up to Work Jointly for a Polio-Free Region

Teams from the Pakistani and Afghan polio programmes coordinate their operations directly, because the two countries share one poliovirus transmission system.

Why operational coordination, not just policy agreement

High-level agreements between the two governments set direction. What determines whether children are actually vaccinated is far more granular: whether campaign dates align to the week, whether a family crossing at Torkham on a Tuesday is reached on either side, whether a positive environmental sample in one country triggers a response in the district across the border.

That level of coordination has to happen between operational teams, not ministries.

What the teams coordinate

• Campaign calendars. Aligning national and sub-national rounds on both sides so mobile families cannot slip between two schedules.
• Border and transit vaccination. Permanent teams at major crossings and along the routes leading to them, vaccinating children in transit. Pakistan runs around 500 permanent transit points nationwide.
• Surveillance exchange. Sharing genetic sequencing, case data and environmental surveillance results, so both programmes can see the actual routes the virus is using rather than only their own half of the picture.
• Displaced and returning populations. Coordinated vaccination when large movements occur, including repatriation of Afghan families from Pakistan — a moment when very large numbers of children move at once.
• Common definitions. Comparable campaign quality measures, so a coverage figure means the same thing on both sides.

The corridors that matter

Two corridors carry most of the risk. In the north, the Torkham crossing links eastern Afghanistan to the Peshawar corridor and onward to southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — the region that produced three of Pakistan's four cases in 2026 up to September. In the south, Chaman links Kandahar to the Quetta block, one of the world's longest-standing poliovirus reservoirs.

Both corridors have carried virus in both directions, repeatedly, as sequencing has shown.

What it takes to sustain

This coordination continues through border closures, security incidents, political disputes and changes of administration on both sides. It is maintained because the alternative is worse for everyone: neither country can be certified polio-free while the other is transmitting, and either can reinfect the other indefinitely.

Related

joint anti-polio strategy · vaccinating the Pak-Afghan border · high-risk areas