First polio case of 2025 reported in Dera Ismail Khan

Health authorities confirmed Pakistan’s first polio case of 2025 on Wednesday, reporting the case from Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan) district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) verified the case, marking the first of the year. The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme, in a statement, confirmed that Dera Ismail Khan, a district in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had reported one of the 11 polio cases in the region in 2024.

In total, Pakistan saw 73 polio cases in 2024, with the breakdown as follows: 27 cases from Balochistan, 22 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 22 from southern Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

Pakistan, along with Afghanistan, remains one of the last two polio-endemic countries in the world. The country has made significant progress over the years; in the early 1990s, Pakistan reported around 20,000 polio cases annually. By 2018, the number had dropped to just eight, and only six cases were reported in 2023.

The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme is set to launch its first nationwide vaccination campaign of the year from February 3 to February 9, aiming to continue efforts toward the complete eradication of the virus.