Polio Case Confirmed in Torghar — 2025 Tally Reaches 30

The National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed a wild poliovirus case from Torghar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, taking Pakistan's 2025 tally to 30. The year closed at 31.

A district most people have never heard of

Torghar is among the smallest and most remote districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — mountainous, sparsely populated, and far from the southern KP corridor that produces most of Pakistan's cases. Its appearance in the case record illustrates a pattern the programme watches closely.

Remote low-population districts are not low-risk. They tend to have the thinnest health infrastructure, the lowest routine immunisation coverage, the fewest environmental surveillance sites, and the longest travel times for vaccination teams. Campaign rounds take longer to complete and are harder to supervise. A problem can persist there for a long time before anything visible happens.

What a case here indicates

Genetic sequencing of the isolated virus establishes whether this was importation from an infected corridor or previously undetected local circulation. In remote districts with limited surveillance coverage, the second possibility carries particular weight — because the absence of reported cases may reflect absence of detection rather than absence of virus.

That is why the programme measures surveillance quality separately from case counts: the rate at which non-polio acute flaccid paralysis is detected, and whether stool samples are collected on time and in good condition. Weak surveillance in a quiet district is a blind spot, not a clean bill of health.

Where 2025 ended

Thirty-one cases for the year, against 74 in 2024 — a substantial improvement, driven by intensified campaigns and expanded transit point vaccination after the 2024 resurgence. Against the single case of 2021, though, it remains a long way from interruption.

Response

Emergency house-to-house vaccination across the affected union council and neighbours, investigation of the child's vaccination and travel history, an active search for unreported paralysis in the surrounding area, and expanded environmental sampling.

For parents in remote districts

Distance from the outbreak areas is not protection — poliovirus travels with people, and remote districts are often where immunity has drifted lowest. Two drops for every child under five in every round, and the complete routine EPI schedule. Call 1166 if a team does not reach your village.

Related: cases by province · surveillance · high-risk areas