Pakistan reports more polio cases than Afghanistan

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic. The data showed a higher number of polio cases reported in Pakistan compared to conflict-ridden Afghanistan.

In 2024, Afghanistan reported 25 cases of polio, while at least 67 cases were reported in Pakistan; however, reports of several samples have yet to be received.

However, a senior official of the Polio Programme of Pakistan termed Afghanistan’s statistics suspicious. The official statedd that Pakistan adheres to a policy of sharing transparent data the country has a robust reporting system comapred to neighbouring Afghanistan. 

He argued that there was a strong possibility that a substantial number of cases might not be reported.

“According to our perception, several cases are not reported in Afghanistan. They don’t collect samples of paralysed children. On the other hand, in Pakistan, every union council is bound to send samples of every paralysed child, due to which we receive thousands of samples every year,” Dawn quoted an official without mentioning their name.

A report shared by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) recorded 67 cases in Pakistan by December 6, compared to 25 in Afghanistan. 

The data showed that 60 percent of cases were diagnosed in boys and 40 percent in girls in both countries.

In Afghanistan, 16 percent and in Pakistan, 12 percent of cases were observed in children who had received not a single dose of oral polio vaccine

Moreover, in Pakistan, at least 591 sewerage samples taken from 106 sites tested positive, while in Afghanistan, 100 samples from 24 sites were found positive. 

The document showed that the population of children under five in Pakistan was 45.4 million, whereas in Afghanistan it was 11.2 million.