Week-long anti-polio drive launched in Karachi

A week-long anti-polio campaign has been launched in the metropolitan city, targeting children under the age of five, as health authorities seek to sustain recent gains against the virus and prevent its resurgence.

The Sindh Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for Polio announced that the campaign, running from July 6 to July 12, aims to strengthen immunity among children and halt transmission, particularly during the high-risk season when the virus is more likely to spread.

Officials said recent environmental surveillance indicates significant progress in curbing the virus. According to June 2026 data, polio virus was not detected in 28 out of 29 sampling sites across Sindh - the best performance recorded since August 2023. Only one site, located in Karachi's East District, tested positive, suggesting that transmission has been reduced considerably, though not yet eliminated.

Karachi has shown visible improvement in recent years, with 11 out of 12 environmental monitoring sites testing negative for the virus for the first time since August 2023. Of these, six sites have remained consistently negative over the past four to five months. District East, once considered a key hotspot, is now limited to a single positive location - a shift authorities attribute to sustained vaccination efforts.

Beyond Karachi, all 17 environmental monitoring sites across the rest of Sindh have also tested negative for polio virus for the first time since October 2023. Districts including Kashmore, Qambar, Badin and Mirpurkhas, where the virus had persisted for months, are now reporting steady improvement, reflecting the effectiveness of province-wide immunisation campaigns.