Pakistan Reports 71st Polio Case of 2024

Pakistan's National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed the 71st wild poliovirus case of 2024, three cases short of the year's eventual total of 74.

Why the running tally is published

The programme announces each confirmed case individually and states the cumulative total. This is deliberate. A single case announcement is easy to treat as an isolated misfortune; a running count makes the trajectory visible, and the trajectory is what determines whether a campaign strategy is working.

It also serves an accountability function. The tally is the number against which provincial and district performance is judged, and it is the figure the programme's partners and the Technical Advisory Group examine when reviewing whether the current approach is adequate.

The scale of the 2024 reversal

Six cases in 2023. Seventy-four in 2024. Pakistan's case record has been volatile before — 8 in 2017 followed by 147 in 2019, then a single case in 2021 — but a twelvefold single-year increase this late in an eradication programme is a serious signal.

What it indicates is that the susceptible child population had been rebuilding for some time beneath a low case count. Population immunity can mask transmission for years; when it falls below the threshold that suppresses paralysis, the accumulated risk becomes visible very quickly.

What surveillance was showing alongside the cases

Environmental sampling through 2024 returned poliovirus-positive results from sites across the country, including districts reporting no cases. Because most infections cause no symptoms, that pattern means the 74 confirmed cases represented only the visible fraction of a much larger volume of infection. See polio surveillance in Pakistan.

The response

Case-response vaccination around each confirmed case, intensified national and sub-national rounds, expanded environmental sampling, and renewed access negotiation in districts where campaigns could not operate. 2025 closed at 31 cases.

For parents

Every campaign round is a separate opportunity to protect a child, and skipping one is not recoverable later. Two drops for every child under five, every round. Complete routine immunisation. Call 1166 if no team reaches you.

Related: cases by province · polio FAQs · polio in Pakistan