The Guinea worm disease is caused by a parasitic roundworm that is currently found in African countries. The worm is mainly found in countries with few and little water supplies, and where the water is unsafe, and the same source is used for a variety of activities, such as drinking and cleaning yourself or clothes. The person if infected with the worm once they drink water that is infected with the larva of the worm or the vector which carries the larva. The stomach acid then hatches the eggs, to which the worm then travels to the intestine where they mate and the male dies. The female then grows inside the human, up to two to three feet long, and when the female decides to come out, a blister is created, and immense pain follows. Some of the other symptoms of the disease are fever, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, shortness of breath, and burning and itching where the worm is buried. The only way to get the pain to be soothed, is by stepping into the water, where the ulcer then breaks. The ulcer releases thousands of larvae into the water, where the cycle begins anew. There is no medicine or vaccine for this parasite, and the only way to get rid of the worm, is up tying the worm to a stick, then pulling the worm from the person. In the bible, it talks about a serpent and putting it on a pole where it will eventually die, and the people who are bitten will live. Pundits today think the serpent that is mentioned in the bible were the roundworms we see today. Our treatment, like they did thousands of years ago are still the same, but we now have better prevention methods to make sure it does not happen anymore. Starting in 1980, a campaign started to end that roundworm that causes the disease. In 1986 the Guinea Worm Eradication Program was started, and this was headed by the Carter Foundation, started by former president Jimmy Carter, along with many other organizations. This program has created preventative measures against the parasite as well as treatment centers. The program has created containment centers, which treat people for the disease as well on educating them about the disease, since many thought it was witchcraft that was the disease. Warning signs to not enter the water have been created as well as books for children. Larvicides have been given to put in the water to kill them before they are ingested. Pipe filters have been given to people, so they can drink the water without intaking any larva or their vectors. New wells and boreholes have also been built to give people new sources of clean water. This disease is only in Africa still, and when program started, there were 3.5 million cases spanning twenty different countries in Africa, now there are only a little over 10,000 cases in only nine countries in Africa. Sudan is one of the countries that has been cleared as worm free, but Chad, which at one point was reporting no new cases, recently had a spike in cases. This was found that dogs now were able to get the virus from drinking the water as well as eating infected fish and frogs. Other than no outright vaccine or treatment for the parasite, there are a few challenges that people face when trying to eradicate the disease. One being the new finding that domesticated dogs are able to carry and spread a genetically similar worm that humans also get. The other being that cases are not reported in a timely manner, especially in Mali and South Sudan because those countries are facing civil unrest. Other challenges for the program include: getting reports through surveillance of other people and aggressively detecting the disease, investigating the reported cases and finding the source of the infection, and lastly notifying the correct health authorities as to what is happening.
Works cited:
Powerpoint
https://www.who.int/dracunculiasis/disease/en/
https://www.verywellhealth.com/guinea-worm-disease-dracunculiasis-4174524