Printed From: COVID-19 / South Africa Omicron Variant
Category: Coronavirus Pandemic: International Forums
Forum Name: Select Your Country
Forum Description: (Latest News & General Discussion by Country)
URL: http://www.avianflutalk.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=37141 Printed Date: March 28 2024 at 4:46am
Topic: Africa, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad: Guinea Worm SuccessPosted By: Technophobe
Subject: Africa, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad: Guinea Worm Success
Date Posted: March 21 2018 at 9:09am
South Sudan Stops Spread of Guinea Worm Disease
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA
— South Sudan has gone 15 months without a single reported case of
Guinea worm disease, the nation's health minister said Wednesday,
suggesting a major victory for global health officials trying to
eliminate the debilitating affliction.
Also,
the Carter Center said only 30 cases were reported last year in
isolated areas of Ethiopia and Chad. That's a real achievement for
efforts to eradicate a disease that only 30 years ago affected 3.5
million people a year in 21 countries across Africa and Asia.
Contracted
by drinking infected water, Guinea worm disease affects some of the
world's most vulnerable people. The 3-foot-long (meter-long) worm is
asymptomatic and incubates in people for up to a year before painfully
emerging, often through extremely sensitive parts of the body.
Unlike
other diseases that are controlled by medicines or vaccines, Guinea
worm can be eradicated through education, by training people to filter
and drink clean water.
South
Sudan was one of nine countries still affected when its eradication
program began in 2006. At the time, the disease was endemic in more than
3,000 villages, and the country tallied more than 20,500 cases.
South
Sudan's progress against Guinea worm, announced at the center by its
health minister, Dr. Riek Gai Kok, is being touted as one of the few
successes to emerge from the young nation while it battles a five-year
civil war, starvation and human rights atrocities.
The
global campaign to wipe out guinea worm was launched by the World
Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has led these efforts
since 1986, when the Carter Center and UNICEF joined the campaign.
Only one human disease has ever been successfully eradicated: smallpox.
As with guinea worm, there is also a continuing effort to eradicate
polio, but such efforts often face their greatest obstacles in the last
phase of stopping the disease.