What happened
Pakistan launched its second nationwide polio vaccination campaign of 2026 on Monday 13 April, aiming to immunise more than 45 million children under the age of five, Dawn reported. The drive, the year’s second after the first nationwide campaign in February, runs until 19 April, with over 400,000 frontline health workers going door to door across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Islamabad.
Vitamin A supplements are being administered alongside the vaccine to strengthen children’s overall health and immunity. The campaign is being carried out in coordination with Afghanistan as part of joint efforts to curb the cross-border spread of the virus.
In Punjab, the province’s health authorities set a target of vaccinating more than 23.3 million children under five, with the drive extended to seven days in Lahore because it remains a high-risk reservoir district and run for four days elsewhere in the province.
Why it matters
The head of the polio programme, Anwarul Haq, said the poliovirus had been detected in 23 of 87 districts so far in 2026, compared with 82 districts in 2025. Positive environmental samples have also fallen sharply, from 651 in 2025 to 40 so far this year. Pakistan reported 31 polio cases in 2025 and has confirmed one case in 2026, from Sujawal in Sindh.
Punjab’s own surveillance data mirror the national decline. Of 99 environmental samples tested in the province in 2026, only one — reported from Lahore in February — had tested positive, and it later turned negative in March. Overall positivity in Punjab dropped to 1 per cent, down from 26 per cent at the end of 2025, with Rawalpindi recording zero positive samples this year.
The prime minister’s focal person on polio eradication, Ayesha Raza Farooq, said Pakistan was “closer than ever to ending polio” but stressed that this was also the most critical stage of the effort. She noted that polio causes lifelong disability and has no cure but is entirely preventable, and said the campaign aimed to ensure every child under five receives two drops of the vaccine to close remaining immunity gaps.
First Lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari called on families and communities to cooperate with vaccination teams, saying Pakistan stood at a “critical juncture” and that the coming phase represented the final stretch, in which reaching every child was essential.
What is still uncertain
The programme’s own figures show how much the outcome depends on access in the remaining high-risk districts. The single confirmed case in 2026 and the reduced but non-zero environmental detections mean the virus is still circulating, and the cross-border coordination with Afghanistan leaves the campaign exposed to security and access conditions in border areas. Earlier the same day, a policeman was killed and four people injured when a police team travelling to provide security for the polio drive was attacked in Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, underscoring the risks facing vaccination teams.
Sources & reporting notes
This article is a synthesis of published material, not original reporting. Sources were reviewed on 13 April 2026.
- Dawn (Ikram Junaidi) — Pakistan steps up push to end polio with second nationwide campaignPublished 13 April 2026 · The launch, target, workforce, regional coverage and programme surveillance figures.
- Dawn — Punjab set to vaccinate 23.3m kids against polioPublished 13 April 2026 · Punjab-specific targets and environmental-sample positivity data.
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