10 March 2026, Islamabad, Pakistan – “Integrating polio drops in the measles-rubella campaign meant we used the opportunity to reach vulnerable populations with 3 essential vaccines, doubling our public health delivery on the spot.” Polio frontline worker Mahnoor Ali perfectly summarized the spirit that led Pakistan to administer the oral polio vaccine during the measles-rubella vaccination campaign supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in late 2025. The result: in addition to protecting 34 million children from measles-rubella nationwide, over 19 million were also protected from paralytic polio across 88 high-risk districts.
Mahnoor is among the 140,000 health workers and supervisors who were trained and mobilized by WHO – in partnership with the Government of Pakistan – to conduct a vaccination campaign led by Pakistan’s Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) in collaboration with the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI).
The measles-rubella campaign was launched as a critical response to a surging epidemic threat. With the country registering over 17,000 measles cases in 2025 (as of November), reaching every eligible child – aged 6 months to 59 months – was a race against time.
