Only 13 people were affected by Guinea worm disease in 2022. A historic figure, which highlights 40 years of battle.
Par Le Point.fr
© DANIEL HEUCLIN / Biosphoto / Biosphoto via AFP
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UNo more towards exceptional news. There would have been only 13 cases of Guinea worm disease in 2022. When the attempt to eradicate this disease began in 1986, there were more than three million cases recorded. If eradicated, it would be the second in history after smallpox, according to The Guardian.
This low figure is the result of more than forty years worldwide, mobilizing affected communities and improving the quality of drinking water in transmission hotspots. Thus, Pakistan, India and Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are among the countries that have eradicated it. There are still cases in Chad (six cases in 2022), South Sudan (five), Ethiopia (one) and three countries that have not recorded any cases in 2022: Angola, Mali and Sudan.
If dracunculiasis is eradicated, it would also be the first time that a disease would disappear without the need for a vaccine or a drug. But for that, it will have to be eliminated not only in humans, but also in animals. And there too, things are going in the right direction, according to the Carter Center, which leads the eradication program, since infections have fallen by more than a fifth in 2022.
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No known treatment
Adam Weiss, who runs the program, said: “We continue to study ways to defeat and prevent this infection… We will not stop until the last Guinea worm is gone. »
Even today, no effective treatment is known to fight Guinea worm disease. About a year after Guinea worm larvae enter the body, usually by drinking contaminated water, the affected person will experience severe pain as a blister forms on the skin and emerges slow of one or more worms measuring up to one meter, recalls the British media. The disease is mostly incapacitating.