New polio case in Khyber as 24m children face drops from Monday

A 13-month-old girl in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been paralysed by polio, the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) for Polio Eradication confirmed on Sunday, as the country prepares for a seven-day vaccination drive starting Monday. Dawn and The Express Tribune reported the case.

The case

The child is from Union Council Janbaz-B in Bara tehsil of Khyber district, according to the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme (PPEP). It is the second case from Khyber district this year and the sixth from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Counts differ between the two reports: Dawn calls it the country’s eighth case of 2026, while the text of The Express Tribune’s report says it is the seventh, with six from KP and one from Sindh. We have not been able to settle the difference from the reports.

The programme said polio is highly contagious, has no cure and can cause lifelong paralysis, but is preventable with safe and effective vaccines. “The case is a reminder of the importance of vaccinating every child,” it said. Overall wild poliovirus transmission has declined this year, it added, but environmental samples in the Peshawar Block, which covers Khyber and Peshawar districts, still test positive, which means the virus is circulating and children remain at risk. A case investigation has begun, and the programme is working out a response, including targeted vaccination and stronger routine immunisation.

The campaign from Monday

A sub-national polio campaign will run from November 2 to 8 in 97 districts, including Khyber, aiming to give drops to nearly 24 million children under five. It will run at the same time in Pakistan and Afghanistan with cross-border coordination. Parents are asked to make sure every child under five gets the oral vaccine in this and later rounds. In September, the previous round reached more than 29.3 million children; see our report on the September drive. This year Pakistan has held four large-scale campaigns, protecting more than 45 million children several times, plus smaller targeted rounds of oral and injectable vaccine in high-risk areas, including the Peshawar Block.

How far the country has come

The Tribune quotes the NEOC as saying Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8 per cent, from an estimated 20,000 a year in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025. Earlier cases this year include one in Bannu, where insecurity has made it harder for vaccination teams to work; read our report on the fifth case, in Bannu, and on a Karachi case reported last month.

What is not yet clear

The reports do not say whether the girl had received any polio drops, what her condition is, or whether the earlier Khyber case this year came from the same area. They also do not explain why the two reports differ on the national count. The programme’s case investigation should answer the first questions, and its next national update should settle the count.

Why it matters

Polio can cause lifelong paralysis, and every case shows that the virus is still finding unvaccinated children. The programme’s own statement says that “no child will be safe from polio until all children are consistently vaccinated”. The test now is the campaign that starts on Monday: whether teams reach children in Khyber and Peshawar, and whether the next environmental samples from the Peshawar Block come back clear.

This article draws on reporting by Dawn and The Express Tribune.