PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan efforts to eliminate polio suffered another blow on Monday after a northern enclave reported its first case in seven years. Overall, it was the country's 11th case since January, despite the launch of several immunization drives.
The virus was detected in a child from the district of Diamer in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, according to the country's polio eradication program.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the spread of the wild polio virus has not been stopped, according to the World Health Organization. There are ongoing outbreaks of polio linked to the oral vaccine in 10 other countries, mostly in Africa.
The new case was reported after Pakistan on Sunday wrapped up its third nationwide polio vaccination drive of the year, aiming to immunize 45 million children.
Mohammad Iqbal, a director at the polio program in the northwest, said local health officials were still trying to determine how the poliovirus that was found in the southern port city of Karachi had infected the child in Diamer.
During the summer season, thousands of tourists from Karachi and elsewhere visit tourist resorts in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Pakistan’s polio eradication program has been running anti-polio campaigns for years, though health workers and the police assigned to protect them are often targeted by militants who falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Since the 1990s, attacks on polio vaccination teams have killed more than 200 workers and security personnel.
A health worker marks a house after administrating a polio vaccine to a child at a neighborhood in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)
A health worker, left, administers a polio vaccine to a child at a neighborhood in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)
A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child at a neighbourhood, in Lahore, Pakistan, Monday, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.
A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.
Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.
For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.
The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”
Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.
Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)
