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posted by janrinok on Sunday October 06 2019, @07:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the which-end? dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

The End Of Guinea Worm Was Just Around the Corner. Not Anymore

Next year was supposed to be the end of the line for Guinea worm.

The epic, decades-long campaign against the parasite — which humans and animals can contract from drinking water and which, about a year later, emerges as a worm up to 3 feet long from painful lesions on the feet or legs — has been one of the big success stories in modern global health. In the 1980s, more than 3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia contracted Guinea worm annually. Last year, that number was down to 28.

Former President Jimmy Carter, who turned 95 this week and whose nonprofit Carter Center has led much of the Guinea worm eradication effort, has said that he would "like for the last Guinea worm to die before I do."

But that goal moved further out of reach this week, when the World Health Organization quietly revealed that it has moved its expected Guinea worm eradication date, which had been 2020, ahead a decade, to 2030. The change was first reported in Nature.

Over the past few years, the eradication effort has faced a series of setbacks. Last year, South Sudan, one of the countries hit hardest by the parasite, declared victory over it. But only a few months later a new outbreak surfaced there.

In 2013, researchers began to notice that in Chad, Guinea worm was proliferating among dogs — including some cases in which a single dog could carry more than 60 worms. The number of known infected dogs in Chad is rising, from a few hundred cases at first to as many as 2,000 this year. The parasite also seems to be spreading among baboons in Ethiopia.

[...] "We redefined eradication as elimination of transmission in animals as well as in humans," Breman says. "We're not exactly sure when the last dog or other animal will give up their worms. So that means there will be this delay."


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  • (Score: 2) by Username on Sunday October 06 2019, @01:57PM (1 child)

    by Username (4557) on Sunday October 06 2019, @01:57PM (#903359)

    I thought human caused species extinction was a bad thing? Surprised the media censors left this thought progression in the article.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @01:10AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @01:10AM (#903531)

    You might have a point for something like the mosquito, which participates in the food chain but this is a parasite which adds nothing to the food chain. Yet a Buddhist, who will kill no living animal, might point out that a parasite is better than a predator which will kill its meal while the parasite feeds and lets its prey live. Ah, but these subtle thoughts are wasted on one who brushes off the 6th mass extinction as fake news.