• National immunisation week begins amidst challenges
• Experts call for local vaccine manufacturing to cut reliance on imported drugs

KARACHI: Seventy-one children, including 40 in Sindh, have already lost their lives to measles in the first four months of this year as the provincial government held a series of public awareness activities on Saturday in connection with World Immunisation Week.

The week 2026 — being observed globally from April 24 to April 30 — is dedicated to the theme ‘For Every Generation, Vaccines Work’ — aims to create public awareness and increase rates of immunisation.

According to official data, of the 71 children died of measles across the country Sindh topped the list with 40 deaths followed by 12 each in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and four in Balochistan in the first four months.

Sources said a total of 4,541 confirmed measles’ cases were reported in the first quarter of this year in the country with 1,712 in KP, 1,198 in Punjab, 1,183 in Sindh, 197 in Balochistan, 151 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 55 in Islamabad and 45 in Gilgit-Baltistan.

‘Unvaccinated children’

Responding to concerns over measles’ deaths and high number of cases, Dr Raj Kumar, Programme Director EPI, Sindh, explained that there was a large cohort of unvaccinated children formed during the Covid-19 that the government was trying to cover through different strategies.

He pointed out that while the government had made substantial progress in improving overall vaccination coverage, there were certain districts seeing frequent measles’ outbreaks.

“These areas include Khairpur and parts of the northern belt. We are responding to these issues by developing strategies specifically tailored to address gaps in vaccination coverage in these areas. Besides, we just have been through a season that usually sees a peak in measles’ cases,” Dr Kumar said.

On the ‘zero-dose’ children, he said that some 40,000 to 50,000 ‘zero-dose’ children were now covered in every anti-polio drive.

The government, he said, had doubled its financial support to the EPI programme and there wouldn’t be any issues even if international donors withdrew their assistance and that it had also increased the numbers of vaccinators to address the human resource gaps.

Polio cases

Polio, the sources said, remains a national challenge with the continued prevalence of the disease amid rising security concerns for vaccinators. This year, one polio case has been detected in Sujawal, Sindh.

Pakistan reported 74 polio cases in 2024 and 31 cases in 2025, while Sindh recorded nine cases in 2025, with nearly 80 per cent of environmental samples testing positive for the virus.

Recently, however, the Sindh chief minister had claimed significant progress in battling polio, with environmental positivity rates declining to 24pc.

“While the government continues its efforts, there are multiple challenges with respect to routine immunisation. The most important one is vaccine hesitancy,” said Dr Khalid Shafi representing the Pakistan Paediatric Association.

He emphasised the need for devising effective public awareness strategies.

“We know that all vaccines in the routine immunisation programme are available free of cost at all centres but still parents are reluctant to get their children vaccinated, risking their lives and safety,” Dr Shafi said.

He also stressed the need for increasing the number of female vaccinators to encourage public confidence.

Alarm over ‘zero-dose’ crisis

In its statement, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) expressed its concern over the high burden of vaccine-preventable diseases and a staggering number of “zero-dose” children in the country.

“Pakistan continues to trail behind countries like China and Iran, which maintains near-universal coverage (over 95pc), and India and Bangladesh, both of which have surpassed 90 per cent through aggressive outreach.

“Currently, over one million children in Pakistan remain ‘zero-dose’, having never received a single vaccination. This vulnerability results in a high burden of disease, for instance, 25,000 measles cases are reported annually across the country,” said Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro, representing the association.

Fifty-eight per cent of Pakistani children remained at risk due to being unimmunised or under-immunised, he added.

To bridge the gap and move Pakistan towards the coverage levels seen in neighbouring nations, he called for immediate investment in national facilities to begin local vaccine manufacturing, reducing long-term reliance on imports.

“There is also a need for nationwide expansion of digital registry to replace unreliable paper-based records and ensure accurate tracking and utilising mobile teams to reach a scattered population,” he said, while calling for strengthening the primary healthcare system and providing protection to healthcare.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2026