PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has immunised 97 per cent of the target children in the second polio campaign up from 96 per cent recorded in the first drive of the current year.

Officials associated with the effort said that the campaign, which ended a few days ago, also saw reduction in the tally of missed children due to non-availability during the drive from 80,000 in February to 74,000 in April.

However, the number of children, who remained unvaccinated due to parental refusal against oral polio vaccine, stayed unchanged, according to data provided by Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In the February’s campaign, the number of missed children stood at 80,632 as they didn’t show up during the door-to-door drive. The recent drive witnessed dip in the number of missed children due to non-availability during house-to-house campaign. In the recently-concluded drive, their number was recorded at 74,864.

Officials hopeful about eradicating the crippling disease in the province

Officials said that causes of refusals by parents were the same that were being addressed through local community and religious scholars. They said that drives in the current year were bringing positive results owing to changes in strategies, which had not only led to downtrend pattern in missed children but only four out of 34 environmental samples tested positive for polio in March.

They said that two of four samples in Peshawar lately emerged positive which was a big success as all the samples from the provincial capital used to be laced with polio virus last year. Other two positive samples were reported from Bannu and North Waziristan, according to results released by polio laboratory at National Institute of Health, Islamabad.

EOC, which is spearheading polio immunisation in the province, had deployed 35,500 teams to inoculate 6.5 million children below five years under heavy police protection. It also achieved 97 per cent coverage in Hangu district where policemen guarding polio workers came under attack, resulting in the death of one cop and injuries to four others on April 14, the first day of the four-day immunisation drive.

The campaign continued in the district for which security was strengthened further, senior health officials in Hangu told Dawn. Authorities are still facing issues in Peshawar where refusal rate is the highest among all districts. Bannu, Mardan, Lakki Marwat and Khyber are other districts where vaccinators are faced with challenges to convince reluctant parents for inoculate their children.

Officials in health department said that routine immunisation was part of Good Governance Roadmap strategy to safeguard children against 12 vaccine-preventable childhood ailments including polio. “A target of 90 per cent immunisation coverage by end of next year has been set under the strategy to ensure that recipients stay healthy,” they added.

Last year, 25 children died of measles, mostly because of non-vaccination, but the subsequent immunisation drive was a step towards protection of children from the ailment that was avoidable through vaccination.

“This year, the number children dying of measles is less than six due to immunisation, which ensures full protection,” said officials.

They said that vaccine-preventable diseases were recurring everywhere in the world but poliomyelitis was eradicated through vaccination globally except in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan due to vaccine hesitancy. The parents, they said, should ensure administration of two drops to their children till five years in each and every campaign to eradicate polio forever.

They said that campaigns in current year were showing good results and it was hoped that the province would become free of polio that had no treatment and caused disabilities, which were preventable through vaccination.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2026