Pakistan to vaccinate over 45 million children in first 2026 anti-polio campaign

Islamabad, Jan 10 Pakistan will vaccinate more than 45 million children during its first nationwide polio eradication campaign of 2026, scheduled to run from February 2 to February 8, health authorities said on Saturday.

The country's emergency operations centre said the week-long campaign will be conducted across the country, with vaccination teams administering oral polio vaccine to children under the age of five.

The campaign will be held simultaneously in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan as part of coordinated cross-border efforts to interrupt poliovirus transmission, the centre added.

More than 400,000 workers will take part in the drive, carrying out door-to-door vaccination and related activities nationwide, Xinhua news agency reported.

The authorities urged parents to cooperate with vaccination teams to protect their children from lifelong disability caused by poliovirus, and emphasised the importance of completing routine childhood immunisation alongside polio vaccination.

Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus. It invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (for example, contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness of the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Among those paralysed, 5–10 per cent die when their breathing muscles become immobilised.

Polio mainly affects children under 5 years of age. However, anyone of any age who is unvaccinated can contract the disease.

There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life. There are two vaccines available: oral polio vaccine and inactivated polio vaccine. Both are effective and safe, and both are used in different combinations worldwide, depending on local epidemiological and programmatic circumstances, to ensure the best possible protection to populations can be provided.

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