3 ms·
Breaking the life cycle of the parasitic worm that causes river blindness
- vanderZwan 10y agoThe linked article about the Guinea worm[0] explains that the drive to eliminate the disease has hit a snag > A massive campaign, led by President Jimmy Carter, has eradicated the worm from all but four countries. And this year, there have been only seven cases, the Carter Center reports. > But a surprising wrinkle has cropped up: The worm has found a new way to hide and thrive. Back in 2013, something strange started happening in Chad: Dogs were showing up with Guinea worm emerging from their legs. Many dogs. With many, many Guinea worms. > This year there have been more than 600 hundred dogs infected with Guinea, scattered across a large part of Chad, which is nearly twice the size of Texas. This is sad, I thought we were really close to getting rid of the disease. But at least it seems we're still making good progress. I really do hope we'll manage to eliminate a few more of these horrible diseases in the coming century. We're almost there with polio, although it apparently has some setbacks as well[1], so I'm sceptical that the 2025 target for river-blindness will be met. But even if it's not yet completely eliminated by then, the reduction of infected cases alone will be worth it. [0] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/09/489330803/why-the-world-isn-t-close-to-eradicating-guinea-worm http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/09/48933080... [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/08/a-wild-polio-outbreak-in-nigeria/495512/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/08/a-wild-pol...