- Requirement also applies to Afghanistan, Kenya, Congo, etc.
- Kingdom warns of legal action, severe penalties over violation.
- Exempts travellers who do not leave transit area in 12 hours.
KARACHI: Aspirant Pakistanis, already facing various hurdles in traveling abroad, must now possess a mandatory polio vaccination certificate to travel to Saudi Arabia, according to new instructions issued by the Kingdom’s civil aviation authority.
The mandatory requirement applies to travellers from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kenya, Congo, and Mozambique and would result in legal action coupled with severe penalties for those found violating the directives.
However, people travelling through these countries who do not leave the transit area in 12 hours will be exempted from this requirement, said the Kingdom’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).
The development comes as Pakistan remains one of the two polio-endemic countries in the world, along with Afghanistan, with as many as 69 cases reported in 2024.
Balochistan emerged as the worst-affected province with 27 cases followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s 21. Sindh reported the third highest cases with 19 children being crippled by the disease whereas one case each was reported in Punjab and Islamabad.
Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme explains that polio is a “paralysing” disease with “no cure” and “the completion of the routine vaccination for all children under the age of five” just provides them “high immunity against this terrible disease”.
The government has launched multiple vaccination drives as part of its efforts to wipe the disease out of the country with the last one being in December 2024 aiming to inoculate 44,000,000 children across the country.
The country’s rigorous efforts towards polio eradication face significant challenges, particularly in areas where insecurity, misinformation, and parental refusals hinder vaccination campaigns.
With over 60% of children affected by polio in 2024 having not received routine immunisation, health authorities established a high-level committee to improve coordination between the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) and the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI).
A day earlier, at least 51 deported Pakistanis landed in Karachi from seven countries over the last 24 hours, while 30 passengers were offloaded from international flights at the Jinnah International Airport in the port city late on Tuesday night due to issues with their travel documents and other irregularities, officials from the immigration department.
Among those offloaded 11 passengers were travelling on business and visit visas to China and Malaysia, immigration sources revealed, adding that four others who were heading to Oman on family visit visas, were also barred from boarding.
Meanwhile, those deported were from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
Among them, 33 deportees arrived from Saudi Arabia and 14 from Iraq, with almost all of them travelling on emergency passports except two citizens who travelled on their original documents.
Countries such as Oman, Zambia, and Qatar also deported one Pakistani each during the same period, the immigration sources said.
