Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday ordered a comprehensive, coordinated strategy to eradicate polio to be drawn up within a week in consultation with all four provinces. He was chairing a review meeting in Islamabad on the same day a new case was reported from Khyber district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, taking the country's total for 2026 to nine.
The prime minister said a polio-free Pakistan was a major challenge but that the nation's resolve was stronger. He directed the federal health minister, the minister of state, the federal health secretary and the polio eradication team to visit all four provinces immediately and meet chief ministers and chief secretaries.
The meeting was told that seven of this year's nine cases came from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three each from Khyber and Bannu and one from North Waziristan, while Sindh reported two, from Karachi East and Sujawal. Officials said the virus in all three Khyber cases was genetically linked to cross-border transmission.
Officials also said Punjab had reported no new case since February 2025, Balochistan none in 2025 or 2026, and that Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan were already polio-free. A decline in poliovirus detection in environmental samples was presented as an encouraging sign.