gone for good. Former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, looking like a child in Ghana is being treated for the disease Guinea worm in 07. Today, Ghana is free of the worm.
Carter Center
LONDON- the most difficult part of the journey is often the last mile. Twenty-five years after health workers began a campaign to rid the world of Guinea worm cases have been reduced by over 99%. But the 1800s or that still occur each year are a threat to eradication efforts worldwide and will be the hardest and most expensive to treat.
At a press conference today, Minister for International Development of the UK, Stephen O'Brien, announced that the government will donate £ 20 million ($ 31 million) about 4 years to complete the eradication effort, led by the Carter Center in Atlanta provided other donors come forward with the remaining £ 40 million required.
If successful, the campaign would make Guinea worm only the second human disease to be eradicated, after smallpox and the first to disappear by behavioral change instead of a vaccine. The parasite, once abundant in Africa and South Asia, is now limited to only four countries. Mali, Ethiopia and South Sudan, the newly independent representing 98% of cases have not yet interrupted transmission; and disappointment eradication leadership, isolated cases have also occurred last year in Chad, which had previously been declared free of worm
The Guinea worm is spread when people ingest its larvae in contaminated drinking water. larvae incubating inside the human host and painfully emerge through the skin as fully grown, 1 meter long to a year later. At the conference, former US President Jimmy Carter, who at 87 still spearheads the campaign, recalled the first time he observed a worm coming out of the breast of a young woman. excruciating pain of women "brought tears to my eyes," he said.
Since the worm can grow inside the human body, it could be eliminated completely if no new infections took place. simple changes in behavior such as drinking water filter and discourage people with a worm emerging to walk the ponds and lakes have reduced cases of Guinea worm from 3.5 million in 1986 to 1797 in 2010. But finish the work was difficult, and the original deadline of 1995 was moved several times.
Among the problems, Carter said, is that Africans often resist the idea, ponds sacred premises are dangerous. the war and unrest have caused major setbacks as well although Carter's negotiations have resulted in an interruption of the Sudanese civil war in 1995 that allowed the country to move forward . Monitoring is the most difficult challenge. the health workers surveyed 23,0 villages in Africa to teach people about prevention and distribution of water filters, but most other cases occur in remote, isolated areas . "It's easier to spot a wildfire smoldering twig," said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan at the conference this morning.
The current objective of Carter center is the global eradication defined as three consecutive years of unreported cases by 2015. £ 20 million by the British government, who said O'Brien is the first of many new contributions to neglected tropical diseases that the Kingdom -um plans to do, is a third of the amount Carter says is needed. the money will go to education and health training, digging their own wells, and providing tools such as water filters and larvicide to .. communities
Chan called on others to follow suit was difficult to keep the focus and funding of the disease because it is usually not fatal, she said: "for most of world is a worm invisible Out of sight, out of heart, living in remote areas beyond the end. .. Of the road "Carter holding her hand, she and her UK government thanked for their" do-good spirit in this time of austerity "
Fix: the number of cases of Guinea worm was 3.5 million in 1986, not 1996.
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