Extracts below from a news article in Goats and Soda. Full text here: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/23/1158358366/jimmy-ca...
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Jimmy Carter took on the awful Guinea worm when no one else would — and he triumphed
February 23, 2023
'Guinea worms are spread through contaminated drinking water and eating undercooked fish. The female worms, which can be up to 3 feet long once they mature, cause incredibly painful, open blisters usually on the infected person's lower legs and feet – through which the worms emerge. It can take a toll for weeks or months, and sometimes permanently, leaving the individual unable to support a family.
The effort to end this disease did not rely on high-tech methods. Kelly Callahan, a public health worker who spent years fighting Guinea worm disease in southern Sudan with the Carter Center, says: "Guinea worm disease has no cure, no vaccination, basically the entire eradication effort is built on behavior change."
That's meant teaching people in vulnerable areas to filter their water and giving them the low-cost tools to do so.
Other strategies included providing access to safe water supplies; better detection of human and animal cases; cleaning and bandaging of wounds; preventing infected people and animals from wading into water and the use of a larvicide to kill the worms...
Because of Carter, the world has come incredibly close to wiping out Guinea worm...
This week came the news that Carter has entered hospice care in his final days, but his death will not mean the end of his work. In a statement, the Carter Center has pledged to continue the fight to wipe out Guinea worm.
When that scourge does come to an end, it will become one of Carter's signature achievements – an extraordinary accomplishment that reflects a simple yet profound tenet of his personal philosophy: "To try to help one another instead of being willing to go to war with one another."
He recognized the difficulty of living up to this philosophy: "Getting along with one another and treating each other as equals is one of the hardest things to do on earth." And it's one of the things that Carter did best.
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Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
