Sindh launches anti-polio drive across from September 21

Sindh will launch a province-wide anti-polio campaign from September 21 to 27, targeting more than 10 million children with vaccine drops across all 30 districts, the provincial government announced on Saturday. Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah wrote to media houses ahead of the campaign, asking outlets to dedicate the first 15 seconds of every hourly news bulletin to raising awareness about the drive. The letter said media coverage was “decisive” to the effort to eliminate the poliovirus from the province. According to the chief minister, the campaign will cover 23 full districts and seven partial districts, with vaccination teams targeting all children under the age of five across Sindh. The drive comes as Pakistan continues to battle one of the last remaining strongholds of endemic wild poliovirus in the world, alongside Afghanistan. The country recorded 31 polio cases in 2025, down from 74 in 2024, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh accounting for the bulk of cases. Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Centre reported the rate of positive polio virus detection in environmental samples had declined to 13. 1 per cent during the first six months of 2026, with 28 of 29 environmental samples collected in Sindh testing negative for the virus, pointing to a gradual improvement even as pockets of transmission persist. Health officials have repeatedly flagged Sindh’s urban centres, particularly Karachi, as a persistent challenge for the eradication programme, citing high refusal rates and missed children during earlier rounds this year.

Read full story on Aaj English Tv