Polio remains a global health emergency. The World Health Organization announced on November 13 that the international spread of poliovirus continues to constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — its highest alert category short of a pandemic emergency — and extended its temporary recommendations for a further three months.

Source: WHO statement, Nov 13, 2026

The decision follows the 46th meeting of WHO's Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations, convened by video conference on September 30 with affected countries. The committee unanimously concluded that the risk of international spread continues to justify emergency status, and unanimously concluded that the situation does not constitute a pandemic emergency. Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accepted the committee's assessment on November 12, WHO said.

Transmission is confined — but intense in three places

Wild poliovirus transmission is now geographically confined to the two endemic countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which WHO treats as a single epidemiological bloc because the virus keeps crossing their shared border — shared cross-border transmission was documented as recently as mid-2026. Since the committee's last meeting in May, 25 new wild cases were reported: 22 in Afghanistan and three in Pakistan. Sustained local transmission is concentrated in three critical geographies: the South Region of Afghanistan, where low population immunity makes it the area of greatest concern; South Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, where insecurity and operational challenges impede vaccination; and Karachi, where transmission persists in some pockets despite a significant fall in environmental positivity in 2026.

The committee noted real obstacles behind the numbers. In Afghanistan, house-to-house vaccination campaigns have not been run since October 2024 because of security concerns, and site-to-site campaigns often miss younger children; the inclusion of women as vaccination workers remains very low, especially in the South. In Pakistan, it noted strong leadership and high reported national coverage, but district-level quality stays variable in places such as the Quetta Bloc, South KP and the Central Pakistan Bloc, with vaccine hesitancy in some communities and insecurity in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Both countries run mostly synchronised campaign schedules and all-age vaccination at border crossing points.

Vaccine-derived outbreaks are the wider map

Beyond the two endemic countries, vaccine-derived polioviruses are circulating far more widely: 155 cVDPV cases were recorded in 2026 as of September 15 across 20 countries — 118 of type 2, 24 of type 1 and 13 of type 3 — with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (52) and Nigeria (36) together accounting for about 75 per cent of the type-2 caseload. The committee flagged continued type-2 transmission in the Lake Chad Basin and the Horn of Africa, intensifying transmission in DR Congo, and a large pool of more than 4.5 million unimmunised children under five in Yemen's northern governorates, where insecurity has blocked a proper outbreak response. It also noted rising type-1 and type-3 cases in 2026 as a sign of low population immunity, and that 18 countries have yet to introduce a second dose of inactivated polio vaccine into routine schedules.

Under the extended temporary recommendations, countries with local transmission should ensure residents and long-term visitors receive a dose of oral or inactivated polio vaccine between four weeks and 12 months before international travel, carry an International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis, and restrict the departure of residents who lack vaccination documentation. The global targets remain to interrupt endemic wild transmission in 2026 and to stop vaccine-derived type-2 outbreaks by 2028.

What happens next: the emergency status and travel-vaccination recommendations now run for another three months, when the committee will review the situation again. For the Punjabi and wider South Asian diaspora, the practical point is the travel rule: people travelling from Pakistan — one of only two countries where wild polio still circulates — are expected to show proof of polio vaccination, and both endemic countries are under pressure to reach the children their campaigns still miss before the 2026 interruption target slips.