Two New Polio Cases Confirmed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Pakistan's National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed two new wild poliovirus cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Why KP dominates the current record

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — specifically its southern districts — has become the decisive region for Pakistan's eradication effort. Of the four cases Pakistan reported in 2026 up to September, three were from the Bannu division. The programme's own explanation is direct: security-related access constraints have left children missing critical vaccination, allowing wild poliovirus to continue circulating.

The southern KP corridor covers Bannu, North and South Waziristan, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat and Tank. These districts share three characteristics that make them the hardest places in the country to vaccinate.

• Interrupted access. Campaigns are curtailed or cancelled, sometimes across consecutive rounds. A campaign that does not run cannot be compensated for elsewhere.
• Population movement. Constant movement within the corridor and across the Afghan border means virus circulates between districts rather than staying put.
• Historical immunity gaps. The vaccination ban across North Waziristan from 2012 to 2014 left a cohort entirely unprotected, and the corridor has never fully recovered its routine immunisation coverage.

Two cases at once

Simultaneous confirmations from the same province usually indicate a shared transmission chain rather than independent events. Genetic sequencing of the isolated viruses establishes how closely related they are, which tells the programme whether it is dealing with one chain spreading or several separate introductions — and that determines how wide the response needs to be.

The response

Emergency house-to-house vaccination across the affected union councils and their neighbours, investigation of each child's vaccination history, an active search for unreported paralysis cases, expanded environmental sampling, and where access allows, additional rounds targeted at the specific settlements involved.

Where household campaigns cannot operate, the programme relies on permanent transit point vaccination, negotiated short access windows, and community-based vaccinators recruited from within the area.

For families in southern KP

Access in these districts is intermittent, so a round that is missed may not come again soon. When a team reaches your area, vaccinate every child under five — including those vaccinated recently. Complete the routine EPI schedule when a facility is reachable. Call 1166 if no team arrives.

Related: ongoing risk in south KP · high-risk areas