2 More Countries Eliminate Guinea Worm- Blog #5

KaRika Jones
Feb. 18, 2011
10:30 PM

In recent news Niger and Nigeria has eliminated the Guinea worm completely. It is true that this disease has been around for centuries, but it is possible that the Guinea worm would be the second known disease wiped out in mankind. The Guinea worm is in the stagnant waters, so when the people drink the contaminated water that worm grows inside of them for a year until it comes out of their skin. The symptoms of disease is a very itchy body and many blisters that causes tremendous pain. There is no medical treatment, so what Jimmy Carter and his volunteers of the Carter Center do is send awareness of the worms in the water. Together they invented a piped filter that the people can wear around their necks whenever they would like to drink from the water. There were 3.5 million cases of the Guinea worm disease, it is now down by 99.9% with only 3,000 cases left. The disease remains in Mali, Ethiopia and Southern Sudan but from Jimmy Carter he believes everything should be clear in the next two or three years. I must say I am truly proud of this accomplishment for the eliminating of this disease. Especially being that it will be the second disease to be wiped out in mankind. I hope that the people in Niger and Nigeria will keep up with this trend of the piped filters, but I wonder would this opened doors to get fresh waters and better resources to countries like these. I'm sure with teamwork there will be many other diseases that can be conquered.

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/18/2-more-countries-eliminate-guinea-worm/?npt=NP1