Reporting snapshot · 30 September 2026. This is a dated snapshot based on the national polio programme's 29 September confirmation and the reporting around it. The programme has not said when a targeted campaign will reach the affected union council in Bannu, and this year's case count can still change as surveillance continues.
What happened
Pakistan’s fifth polio case of 2026 has been confirmed in a 17-month-old girl from Khandar Khankhel Union Council in Tehsil Domel, Bannu District, in the country’s southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa belt. The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme said the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication in Islamabad confirmed the case and that the child tested positive for poliovirus.
The programme said four of this year’s five cases have been detected in Bannu Division and three of them in Bannu District. Dawn reported that a National Emergency Operations Centre official confirmed the case on Tuesday, 29 September, and The Express Tribune attributed the confirmation to the Regional Reference Laboratory at the National Institute of Health. Geo News also reported the case as the year’s fifth.
The tally is far below recent years. The programme said polio cases have fallen 99.8 per cent from an estimated 20,000 a year in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025 and five so far in 2026. Dawn reported the 2024 total was 74. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been the hardest-hit province: of the 31 cases recorded in 2025, 20 were in the province, nine in Sindh, and one each in Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan, Geo News reported.
The fifth case is the second in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in September. The programme’s media releases list a fourth case in southern KP on 11 September. The first case of 2026, in a four-year-old child, was confirmed in Sindh’s Sujawal district in March.
Why Bannu Division is the centre of this year’s cases
The concentration in Bannu is the most striking feature of the year’s caseload. The programme said transmission has declined nationally since 2025 but remains persistent in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and officials have repeatedly identified Bannu as the district most likely to sustain transmission.
Dawn quoted a polio expert who said the security situation in Bannu was a central obstacle: campaigns are sometimes halted and polio team workers are at times abducted. “There is a need to address the security-related issues in Bannu because it is the only place from where the polio virus can bounce back,” the expert told Dawn.
The programme pointed to signs of progress elsewhere. It said environmental samples collected in the first two months of 2026 were mostly negative, and Dawn reported a more-than-threefold reduction in positive environmental samples compared with the same period in 2025. Officials attribute the drop to stronger campaign performance and to the arrival of winter, a low-transmission season when the virus becomes largely dormant in cold temperatures.
“The ongoing calendar year has proved to be much better in terms of performance,” Anwarul Haq, head of the Pakistan Polio Programme, told Dawn after the latest nationwide campaign. “Moreover, as we have entered into the low-transmission season, there are fewer chances of polio cases.”
What the eradication programme is doing
The programme says it has run four large-scale polio campaigns in 2026, protecting more than 45 million children multiple times, alongside smaller targeted oral and injectable vaccination drives in high-risk areas. A sub-national campaign concluded on 27 September after immunising more than 28.2 million children, according to Dawn; the programme put the figure at over 28 million.
The response is built around surveillance, door-to-door vaccination and community engagement. The programme says parents, religious leaders and the media all have a role in countering misinformation and in ensuring that children receive routine immunisations as well as campaign doses.
Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the last two countries where polio is endemic. Dawn reported that the programme has warned that continuing Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions could give the virus an opportunity to rebound in the next high-transmission season, even as the current trend is downward. KhabarWire has reported on the programme’s review by the Independent Monitoring Board in July and on earlier nationwide vaccination drives.
What is still uncertain
The programme has not said how or when the 17-month-old child was infected, whether the case is linked to others in Bannu Division, or what targeted response will follow in Khandar Khankhel. It gave no timeline for a campaign in the affected union council.
The bigger uncertainty is whether this year’s sharp decline will hold. The low caseload reflects a better campaign year and a favourable season; the test comes when transmission risk rises again, particularly in districts such as Bannu where insecurity limits access. Case counts are also provisional, since surveillance continues and results are reported as they are confirmed.
Sources & reporting notes
This is a synthesis of the national polio programme's confirmation and published reporting, not independent on-the-ground reporting. The cited pages were reviewed on 30 September 2026.
- Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme (NEOC) — "Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Reports Pakistan's Fifth Polio Case of 2026"Primary record · 29 September 2026 · The laboratory confirmation, the child's age and location, the Bannu Division cluster, the 99.8 per cent reduction claim, and the 2026 campaign figures.
- Dawn — "Pakistan reports ongoing year's fifth polio case"29 September 2026 · Independent confirmation, the 2024 and 2025 tallies, environmental-sample data, the Bannu security constraints, and Anwarul Haq's remarks.
- Geo News — "Pakistan reports fifth polio case of 2026"29 September 2026 · Independent confirmation and the 2025 provincial breakdown.
- The Express Tribune — "Bannu reports fifth poliovirus case of the year"30 September 2026 · Independent confirmation attributed to the Regional Reference Laboratory at the National Institute of Health, and the vaccination-reduction figure.
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