Killing the ‘fiery serpent’
Health officials are poised to eradicate guinea worm disease, a plague that once afflicted millions and which would be just the second human disease wiped from the face of the earth, Donald Hopkins, vice president of health programs for The Carter Center, said Tuesday (Feb. 1). As recently as 1986, guinea worm disease affected 3.5 million people annually in 20 nations. After decades of effort, last year there were just 1,800 cases in four nations, the vast majority in Sudan. “We should be able to stop transmission of the disease by 2012 or soon thereafter,” Hopkins said. “To that prospect, I say good riddance.” Little known in the developed world, guinea worm disease is caused by drinking water containing a small crustacean infected by the worm larvae. Once inside a human host, the worm reproduces and grows. About a year after infection, female worms burrow under the skin and emerge from a painful...
