Ninth polio case detected as PM orders one-week national plan
Seven of the nine cases are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and officials told the prime minister all three in Khyber district are linked to virus circulating in Afghanistan.
Pakistan recorded its ninth polio case of the year on Thursday after the virus was confirmed in Khyber district, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed federal health officials to bring him a coordinated national action plan within a week.
Seven of the nine cases are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: three in Khyber, three in Bannu and one in North Waziristan. Sindh accounts for the other two, one in Karachi East and one in Sujawal. Officials told a meeting chaired by the prime minister in Islamabad that all three Khyber cases are linked to poliovirus circulating in Afghanistan, with cross-border movement identified as a major factor in its spread.
Sharif directed the federal health minister, the minister of state, the health secretary and members of the polio eradication team to visit all four provinces immediately and consult each chief minister and chief secretary before drafting the plan. He said routine immunisation coverage had to improve in districts where polio is present and in others judged at high risk of transmission.
The meeting was told that access for vaccination teams had improved in several difficult areas where security concerns had disrupted past campaigns, and that steps were under way to strengthen protection for teams and to open up southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa districts.
Sharif said the government would ensure the safety and continued access of frontline vaccination workers, and acknowledged the work of polio teams and law enforcement personnel in security-sensitive and hard-to-reach areas.
By province, officials said Punjab has recorded no new case since February 2025 and Balochistan none in 2025 or 2026. Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan have also remained polio-free. In Sindh, they reported a fall in detections from environmental samples this year, which they described as an improvement in surveillance indicators.
Sharif said the continued detection of cases was a concern and that making Pakistan polio-free remained a formidable challenge.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Health Minister Mustafa Kamal, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik, Economic Affairs Minister Ahad Cheema, Minister of State for National Health Services Dr Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Bharath and the prime minister's focal person for the Polio Eradication Programme Ayesha Raza Farooq attended the meeting.
How the reports differ
Business Recorder carried the fullest account, including the district break-up of the nine cases and the officials' statement that the three Khyber cases are linked to virus circulating in Afghanistan. Hum News led on the prime minister's call for coordinated efforts and the ninth case, without the provincial detail. Organiser's headline framed the ninth case against what it described as abductions and killings of health workers, a point the other reports did not raise. Dawn's dispatch in the same file covered a different meeting, convened by the prime minister with the PPP on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the imposition of emergency and governor's rule, and carried no polio figures.
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