Health ministries from around the world meeting at this week’s WHO Executive Board in Geneva expressed serious concern about increasing wild poliovirus transmission in the last two remaining endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, noting that extraordinary measures were going on in response.

The year 2024 saw an increase in virus transmission in both countries, which share the last remaining endemic wild poliovirus reservoir in the world.  WHO Member States commended the new emergency operational approaches being now implemented in both countries to turn the tide on this trend.  These approaches include identifying the different operational reasons why children are not being reached, area by area; increasing co-administration of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) alongside oral polio vaccine (OPV); boosting overall immunity levels in children; and, improving access to more adequate sanitation infrastructures.