ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reported its first case of wild poliovirus for 2026 after a four-year-old child from Bello Union Council in Sujawal district, Sindh, tested positive for the virus, health authorities confirmed on Thursday.
Officials at the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication stated that the case was detected through the country’s polio surveillance network and later confirmed by the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health, Islamabad. In 2025, Pakistan reported a total of 31 wild poliovirus cases. Of these, 20 cases were reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 9 from Sindh and one each from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan.
