FILE – In this March 9, 2007, file photo, a Guinea worm is extracted by a health worker from a child’s foot at a containment center in Savelugu, Ghana. The number of people infected with Guinea worm dropped to just over a dozen worldwide in 2021 as health workers try to eradicate the disease.
FILE – In this Wednesday Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, a woman points to two scares on her leg where two worms emerged, in Terekeka, South Sudan. The number of people infected with Guinea worm dropped to just over a dozen worldwide in 2021 as health workers try to eradicate the disease.
FILE – Lashidu Wahabu, 7, left, cries as a health worker extracts a Guinea worm from his ankle at a containment center in Savelugu, Ghana, Friday, March 9, 2007. The number of people infected with Guinea worm dropped to just over a dozen worldwide in 2021 as health workers try to eradicate the disease.
FILE – In this Wednesday Oct. 4, 2017, file photo, women and children are seen in Terekeka, South Sudan. War-torn South Sudan “should serve as an example” for other countries in the progress it is making in eradicating Guinea worm, said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The number of people infected with Guinea worm dropped to just over a dozen worldwide in 2021 as health workers try to eradicate the disease.
ATLANTA (AP) — Guinea worm infections dropped to just over a dozen worldwide last year, getting closer to fulfilling former President Jimmy Carter’s dream of completely eradicating the disease during his lifetime.
The Carter Center reported Wednesday that only 14 human cases of Guinea worm disease were reported in all of 2021, the result of years of public health campaigns to improve access to safe drinking water in Africa. People who drink unclean water can ingest parasites that can grow as long as 3 feet (a meter) before painfully emerging from the skin.
The Atlanta-based center founded by Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, said the remaining infections occurred in just four countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Mali.
That’s a decline of nearly half compared to the previous year, when 27 cases were reported in seven African countries. And it’s a staggering drop from when The Carter Center began leading the global eradication effort in 1986, when the parasitic disease infected 3.5 million people. Carter, 97, has made eradicating the disease one of his many missions.
“To say that we only have 14 human beings on a planet of almost 8 billion people is quite a phenomenal track record for the Guinea worm program,” Adam Weiss, director of The Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program, told The Associated Press.
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