Health authorities confirmed the first polio case of 2025 on Wednesday in the Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan) district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The National Institute of Health’s (NIH) Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication verified the case, marking the first polio occurrence of the year in DI Khan.
In 2024, Pakistan reported a total of 73 polio cases across the country.
A statement from the Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme confirmed the case, saying, “On Wednesday, the lab confirmed one polio case from DI Khan.”
The statement also noted that DI Khan, located in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had recorded 11 polio cases in 2024.
Breaking down the 73 cases reported last year, the programme revealed that 27 cases were 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 countries where polio is still endemic.
While the country saw around 20,000 cases annually in the early 1990s, by 2018, this number had dropped to just eight. In 2023, only six cases were reported, and just one case was recorded in 2021.
The Pakistan Polio Programme is set to begin the first nationwide vaccination campaign of 2025 from February 3 to February 9.
