Pakistan Reports 69th WPV1 Case of 2024

The National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed Pakistan's 69th wild poliovirus type 1 case of 2024, in the closing stretch of the country's worst polio year since 2019.

Where the year ended

2024 finished with 74 confirmed cases: 27 in Balochistan, 23 in Sindh, 22 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each in Punjab and Islamabad. The comparison that matters is with 2023, which recorded six.

Two features of the year were unusual. The first was the sheer geographic spread — cases in Punjab and Islamabad indicated that virus was moving well outside the historical core reservoirs. The second was how evenly the burden fell across three provinces, rather than concentrating in one, which pointed to a nationwide fall in population immunity rather than a single local failure.

What late-season cases indicate

Poliovirus transmission in Pakistan is seasonal, peaking in the second half of the year. Cases confirmed late in the season are significant for what they imply about the year ahead: virus circulating at high levels in autumn is virus that is well positioned to survive the low season and seed the following year.

That is broadly what happened. 2025 closed at 31 cases — a substantial improvement on 74, but far above the levels Pakistan had reached in its best years.

The underlying problem

The programme's own analysis has consistently identified the same driver: children who are missed round after round. In southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the principal cause is security-related access constraints that prevent campaigns running at all. In urban Sindh it is repeated absence and high population mobility. In Balochistan it is a combination of low routine immunisation, mobile populations and refusal clusters.

None of these is solved by running more campaigns in the places that are already easy to reach.

What was done

The response through late 2024 and into 2025 combined intensified campaign rounds, case-response vaccination around every confirmed case, expanded environmental sampling, and escalated access negotiation in the districts where teams could not operate. See the eradication strategy.

For parents

Two drops in every round for every child under five, including children vaccinated in the previous campaign. Complete the routine immunisation schedule. If a team does not reach your household, call the toll-free helpline on 1166.

Related: district-wise cases · cases by province