Guinea worm disease remains on the cusp of being eradicated, with the global number of cases in 2023 holding steady at 13, according to a provisional account released by The Carter Center.
Guinea worm disease remains on the cusp of being eradicated, with the global number of cases in 2023 holding steady at 13, according to a provisional account released by The Carter Center.
After reading the article, I’m confused about how it works. Guinea worms are parasites that you get infected with from bad water sources. Unless you eradicate the source (e.g. the worms themselves), can you really say that you’ve eradicated the disease? Even if we go a decade without any human contracting it, it’s no harder for someone to contract it by drinking contaminated water than it is today. It’s not like a viral disease, that simply stops existing if infection numbers drop to 0 for a while.
That being said, it’s great that numbers are as low as they are. Education and better water infrastructure is helping.