Polio news: WPV1 in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mass vaccination campaign starts today in Gaza
Pakistan
Pakistan officials confirmed the detection of the third wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case of 2025 today in an individual from District Larkana, Sindh.
This is the second polio case reported from Sindh this year, bringing the total number of cases to two in Sindh and one in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Last year, a total of 74 cases were reported. Of these, 27 were from Balochistan, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 23 from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
The Pakistan Polio Program conducts multiple mass vaccination drives in a year. The first nationwide polio campaign of 2025 has been successfully concluded, with 99% of the targets achieved across the country. The campaign was conducted from February 3 to 9, 2025. During this campaign, more than 45 million children were administered the polio vaccine.
A second round of the Big Catch-Up activity is currently underway in the country, to vaccinate children up to 5 years with EPI antigens.
The Pakistan Polio Program launched a Fractional IPV-OPV Polio campaign in Quetta Division and Karachi on February 20 and February 22 respectively. Around one million children are being targeted for vaccination in this campaign.
Moreover, a vaccination activity targeting 104 UCs bordering Afghanistan or having Afghan refugee camps/populations is scheduled from 24 - 28 February. A total of 0.66 million children will be targeted for vaccination during this activity.
Afghanistan
The first WPV1 case is reported this week, with onset of paralysis on 27 January 2025, from Badghis. It is the first case from the country in 2025.
The total number of WPV1 cases for 2024 is 25.
Gaza
In a Joint statement from WHO and UNICEF, the emergency polio outbreak response in the Gaza Strip is continuing, with a mass vaccination campaign scheduled from 22 to 26 February 2025. The novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) will be administered to over 591,000 children under 10 years of age to protect them from polio. This campaign follows the recent detection of poliovirus in wastewater samples in Gaza, signaling ongoing circulation in the environment, putting children at risk.
Two previous vaccination rounds in the Gaza Strip were successfully conducted in September and October 2024, reaching over 95% of the target. As poliovirus is found to remain in the environment, additional vaccination efforts are needed to reach every child and strengthen population immunity. The presence of the virus still poses a risk to children with low or no immunity, in Gaza and throughout the region.
No additional polio cases have been reported since a ten-month-old child was paralyzed in August 2024, but the new environmental samples from Deir al Balah and Khan Younis, collected in December 2024 and January 2025, confirm poliovirus transmission. The strain detected is genetically linked to the poliovirus detected in the Gaza Strip in July 2024.
Polio vaccines are safe and there is no maximum number of times a child should be vaccinated. Each dose gives additional protection which is needed during an active polio outbreak.