Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water & Sanitation & Hygiene August 2018 | Page 29
Hygiene
Research Reveals Huge Burden of Guinea Worm
Greenwood spent four years studying the disease and
trying to find out why sufferers often developed repeat
infections, without developing immunity.
“We extracted some of the worms,” he said. “And the
traditional way is winding them out on a matchstick,
just gradually. And the problem is that if the worm then
snapped inside, then they got a very severe reaction.”
Greenwood credits the Carter Center, a charitable
foundation set up by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter,
for helping fight the disease to the brink of eradication.
FILE - A girl grimaces as a health worker extracts a parasitic worm from
her at a containment center in Savelugu, Ghana.
LONDON — Guinea worm is on course to become the
second human disease to be eradicated, after smallpox,
thanks largely to intervention overseen by former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter. Little was known about the
infection for decades, as diseases like malaria took priority.
However, previously unpublished research from the 1970s,
released this month, shows the burden the disease has had
on millions of people.
Guinea worm is contracted when people drink water
contaminated with tiny crustaceans that contain the worm
larvae. A year later, a meter-long female worm emerges
through a painful blister, often disabling the infected
person for months.
Professor Brian Greenwood, a British scientist, first
came across Guinea worm in the 1970s when working
in northern Nigeria. He says little was known about the
disease, despite millions suffering from it across Africa and
India.
FILE - A young herder
in Kuse Dam, Southern
Sudan, uses a pipe filter
provided by The Carter
Center to strain out
infective Guinea worm
larvae from the water
while drinking, Feb. 6,
2010.
“People were much more concerned with malaria, bilharzia
and other tropical infections,” Greenwood said. “And
part of the reason was that these people were so disabled
they never got to the clinic or the hospital. So that if you
looked in hospital records, you did not see this as a big
problem.”
There is no vaccine or treatment. Instead, community
education programs teach people to filter drinking water
and avoid entering water sources.
Speaking in 2011, Carter described the initial difficulties.
FILE - Former U.S.
President Jimmy Carter
is shown during a video
interview via a laptop at a
hotel in London, Feb. 2,
2016.
“It was kind of an insult to say ‘this disease comes out
of your pond,’” he said. “So we have had to do a lot of
diplomacy and convincing the people there to take care of
their own problems. Well, it has worked. And now almost
every nation on earth has eradicated or eliminated Guinea
worm.”
When the Carter Center first became involved in 1986,
there were around 3.5 million cases in 21 countries; last
year, 25 cases were recorded in only three countries —
Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
Greenwood’s early study of Guinea worm remained
unpublished, as he was directed to focus on malaria and
meningitis instead; but last year in London, he met Carter,
who persuaded him to publish the research.
“I hope that we have been able to document what a
horrible disease this was,” Greenwood said. “And it is
really important that people realize that. And if we do get
eradication in the next year or two, which I hope will be
the case, that this will not just be seen as a minor thing, but
to be a really very important public health triumph.”
The last few cases of Guinea worm remain because they
are the most difficult to reach. Many are in conflict areas
like South Sudan, but scientists are optimistic this ancient
disease can be eradicated within the next few years.
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