ISLAMABAD — Pakistan reported fewer than half the polio cases in 2025 than the previous year, a sign of progress in its polio eradication campaign even as vaccinators faced repeated militant attacks, the government's Polio Eradication Initiative said.
The announcement came two weeks after Pakistan began its final nationwide polio vaccination campaign years, reaching 45 million children.
Anwarul Haquewho is the coordinator of the National Polio Eradication Emergency Operations Center, told The Associated Press that authorities reported 30 cases of the potentially crippling disease in 2025, up from 74 the year before.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio has not been eradicated, according to the World Health Organization.
Pakistan's latest data underscores both the dynamics and ongoing risks of a decades-long campaign. Although vaccination coverage has improved and the number of reported cases has fallen sharply, health officials say continued transmission in a small number of hard-to-reach areas means the country remains vulnerable to setbacks if immunization efforts do not continue.
Haq said Pakistan will launch its first anti-polio campaign of the new year in the first week of February. He said no new cases had been reported anywhere in the country since September, which was attributed to a decline in vaccinations carried out throughout the year.
Haque said that more than 98% of the target population was covered during the latest vaccination drive. Access problems persisted during vaccination campaigns, especially in parts of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where health workers faced resistance and security restrictions.
Militants have repeatedly attacked vaccination workers and the police charged with protecting them by falsely claiming that these campaigns are a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children.
Authorities are deploying thousands of police during each vaccination campaign following intelligence warnings of possible attacks.
Since the 1990s, such attacks have killed more than 200 polio workers and the police guarding them, officials said.
