Polio vaccination in Pakistan is not a single event but a year-long campaign, repeated again and again against the same population of young children until full immunity takes hold. In 2026, the country has run four separate campaigns, two nationwide and two targeting high-risk districts, delivering polio drops more than 135.9 million times to a population of roughly 45 million children under five, meaning the average child received the vaccine about three times this year alone.
At a glance
- Cumulative reach: Pakistan has delivered polio drops more than 135.9 million times across four campaigns in 2026, according to the National Emergency Operations Centre.
- Not unique children: The total reflects roughly 45 million children under five receiving the vaccine about three times each this year, not 135.9 million individuals.
- Case decline: Confirmed polio cases have fallen from 74 in 2024 to 31 in 2025 to just four so far in 2026.
Four campaigns, one year
Pakistan ran its first nationwide campaign of 2026 from February 2 to 8, vaccinating more than 44.3 million children, according to Xinhua, citing the National Emergency Operations Centre. A second nationwide campaign followed in April, reaching 44.8 million children, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Two smaller, sub-national campaigns targeting high-risk districts followed: 18.6 million children in May, and 28.2 million in September, according to the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme’s own tracking.
Each campaign runs simultaneously with a matching effort in Afghanistan, the only other country where the wild poliovirus remains endemic. More than 273,000 frontline health workers took part in the September round alone, going door to door to reach children wherever they live.
Why the same children get vaccinated again and again
Unlike most childhood vaccines, oral polio vaccine requires multiple doses spaced over time to build full protection, which is why campaigns return to the same districts and the same roughly 45 million children under five repeatedly throughout the year rather than moving on to new populations. Pakistan’s own polio programme reported 98% household coverage during early 2026 campaigns, according to its January 2026 surveillance report.
Framed that way, the 135.9 million figure still tells a real story. It represents sustained, resourced, government-run infrastructure reaching nearly every eligible child roughly three times over, in a country where reaching every child even once used to be the challenge.
A sustained effort behind a longer decline
Pakistan has confirmed just four polio cases in 2026 so far, three in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one in Sindh, continuing a decline that was already underway before this year’s campaigns began: cases fell from 74 in 2024 to 31 in 2025, according to DAWN. “The ongoing calendar year has proved to be much better in terms of performance,” said Anwarul Haq, head of the Pakistan Polio Programme.
This year’s 135.9 million doses represent a continuation of that trend rather than its sole cause. Immunity from oral polio vaccine builds gradually across multiple doses, so 2026’s low case count reflects years of accumulated coverage as much as this year’s four campaigns alone. The country’s polio programme reports a 99.8% decline in annual cases since 1994, when eradication campaigns began and an estimated 20,000 children were paralyzed each year, part of a broader wave of public health wins emerging worldwide, following the path laid decades earlier when Jonas Salk’s vaccine first made eradication conceivable, and toward what could become only the second human disease ever fully eradicated.
What the campaigns still can’t reach
Not every campaign hits its target. The September round aimed to reach 31 million children across 115 districts but ultimately covered 28.2 million across 112, after three Punjab districts, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Rajanpur, had their campaigns postponed, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan. Vaccine refusal and insecurity in parts of both Pakistan and Afghanistan have repeatedly slowed the final push toward eradication, and reaching every last child remains the hardest, most stubborn part of the job.
Read more
For more on this story, see: DAWN
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Jonas Salk announces a working polio vaccine, ending decades of fear
- Smallpox becomes the first infectious disease ever fully eradicated
- The Good News for Humankind archive on public health and disease
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