The 42nd polio case of the year has been reported from the Nowshera District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) for polio eradication said on Tuesday.

“On Tuesday, October 29, 2024, the lab confirmed detection of Type-1 Wild Poliovirus in a child from Nowshera District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” NEOC said in its press release.

This is the first polio case from Nowshera and the 42nd case from Pakistan at large in 2024.

So far, 21 cases have been reported from Balochistan, 12 from Sindh, 7 from KP, and 1 each from Punjab and Islamabad, according to the NEOC.

Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world still left with active polio cases.

Earlier on Tuesday, two policemen were killed in KP’s Upper Orakzai as unidentified gunmen attacked a health office where polio vaccination teams were gathered, officials said.

Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the terrorist attack on the polio team in Orakzai.

“The terrorist attack on the polio team is an assault on Pakistan’s future,” Naqvi said as he paid tribute to the bravery of two police personnel who were martyred while fighting the terrorists.

Militant groups in the region have previously claimed similar attacks on polio teams, falsely portraying the inoculation campaigns as a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.

On Monday, Pakistan launched its third nationwide polio campaign this year as the number of cases drastically rose from only 6 in 2023, after 20 in 2022 and just one in 2021.

The week-long campaign aims to administer the anti-polio vaccine drops to more than 45 million children.