Guinea worm

RECENT POSTS

February 1, 2012 | 12:43 PM | By

How Jimmy Carter became a serpent slayer and global health pioneer

Tom Paulson

President Jimmy Carter speaks at World Affairs Council 60th Anniversary event

Former President Jimmy Carter is in Seattle, having spoken last night at the World Affairs Council’s 60th anniversary celebration and speaking today at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation about Guinea worm.

Mike Urban, mikeurbanart.com

A Nigerian woman with Guinea Worm

Guinea worm is a human parasite that eats its way through the human body and emerges a year later, incapacitating people with the pain of completing its life cycle. It’s horrible.

I’ve seen people with Guinea worm in Africa. Over the years, I’ve also seen what Jimmy Carter and his team at the Carter Center have done to come close now to completely ridding the world of this horrific disease.

It’s a great story, and perhaps of much broader significance to global health than many might realize.

Earlier this week, the Gates Foundation, major pharmaceutical companies and others announced a major $$785 million push against “neglected tropical diseases.” This was celebrated by Bill Gates, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan and others as a critical turning point in global health. The Carter Center got some of the loot, $40 million of it, to finish off Guinea worm.

But in one sense, this push against neglected diseases got a good first shove nearly 30 years ago by Jimmy Carter. One look at the Carter Center’s website shows they got to this point, of recognizing the need to fight neglected diseases, decades ago.

Diseases like river blindness, Guinea worm, parasitic (lymphatic) elephantiasis and schistosomiasis have been in Carter’s cross hairs since the mid-1980s. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Foege, Bill Gates Sr., Donald Hopkins, guinea worm, Jimmy Carter, neglected diseases
February 1, 2012 | 12:42 PM | By

Guinea Worm in Nigeria, 2001

In 2001, photographer Mike Urban and I went to Nigeria as part of a report we did for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the early days of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation global health program.

One of the world’s biggest health problems is dirty water. One of the most horrific illnesses you can get from drinking dirty water is guinea worm, aka dracunculiasis. We visited a village where Carter Center health workers combined treatment of the affliction with prevention education and water supply improvement projects.

Here’s a link to the story on guinea worm we did back then and a slide show of Mike’s photos:

FILED UNDER: Health, guinea worm, Mike Urban, Nigeria
February 1, 2012 | 12:42 PM | By

Grace: Nigeria’s last case of guinea worm

After my first visit to Nigeria in 2001, when I saw more than my fair share of guinea worm infections, I returned to Nigeria for a book project I claimed to be working on. It was 2009 and I was a freelancer.

Since I was in the neighborhood, I asked the Carter Center if I could go meet the last person — a woman named Grace Otubo — to have guinea worm in Nigeria. After a long and frequently bumpy drive from Abuja, we arrived at the village of Ezza Nkwubor, outside of Enugu.

Based on the greeting I received, I think they must have assumed I was someone more important.

Here, in their own words, and song, they celebrate no longer having guinea worm to deal with. They still have health problems, emphasizing that they still need basic health services such as maternal and child care. They still deal with malaria and pneumonia. But they do have one thing to get up and dance about. I later decided I had to join in the dancing, but deleted that part from the video:

FILED UNDER: Health, Carter Center, guinea worm, Nigeria