WHO's 44th IHR Emergency Committee met on March 4, 2026, confirming that poliovirus remains an international emergency, with six wild poliovirus cases in 2026, cVDPV2 circulating in the Lake Chad Basin and Horn of Africa, and a UK environmental detection
Pakistan recorded 65 wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in 2024 and more than 30 in the first six months of 2025, with environmental surveillance detecting WPV1 in sewage samples across at least 28 districts; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province accounted for the majority of cases, where access for vaccination teams remained constrained by conflict, with Afghanistan remaining the only other WPV1-endemic country globally