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Health

Pakistan reports fifth polio case of 2026 as virus persists in Bannu district

Pakistan has confirmed its fifth polio case of 2026 — a 17-month-old girl in Bannu district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — as the NEOC says the virus keeps circulating in southern KP despite a week-long campaign that vaccinated over 28 million children.

By Sarah Whitfield · · 2 min read

Pakistan has reported its fifth polio case of 2026, with the latest infection identified in Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) confirmed on Tuesday.

The case involves a 17-month-old girl from Khandar Khankhel Union Council in Tehsil Domel, Bannu district. According to the NEOC, four of the country’s five polio cases recorded this year have been detected in the Bannu division, including three in Bannu district itself.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remains the country’s hardest-hit province for poliovirus transmission. Of the 31 polio cases reported nationwide in 2025, 20 were recorded in the province, while Sindh reported nine cases and Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan recorded one case each. Pakistan’s first polio case of 2026 was reported in March from Sujawal district in Sindh, involving a four-year-old child; two more were detected in May — one each in Bannu and North Waziristan — and a fourth was confirmed in Bannu in September in an eight-month-old child.

The NEOC said overall poliovirus transmission in the country has declined since 2025, but the virus continues to circulate persistently in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The centre claimed Pakistan has reduced polio cases by 99.8 per cent through vaccination, bringing the annual caseload down from an estimated 20,000 in the early 1990s to 31 in 2025.

The new case comes just after a week-long sub-national anti-polio campaign, held from 21 to 27 September across 112 selected districts, in which more than 28.2 million children received polio drops and over 273,000 health workers were deployed, according to the NEOC. A simultaneous campaign ran in neighbouring Afghanistan during the same period.

Sources

More on this topic: all Health stories

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