The larvae don’t live forever and need a human or dog to procreate. Also, we’ll only be reasonably sure no human or dog cases exist over a year after the last

The larvae don’t live forever and need a human or dog to procreate. Also, we’ll only be reasonably sure no human or dog cases exist over a year after the last human was infected because that’s how long it takes for symptoms to become obvious. I expect the life expectancy of the larvae to be much shorter, but can’t find that online (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculus_medinensis#Life_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculus_medinensis#Life_cy... says* “Within the copepod, the D. medinensis larvae develop to an infective stage within 14 days”*, but doesn’t mention how long they stay infective or how long they can spend in the water before being eaten by the copepod) They probably also will be careful of declaring victory too early because of the existence of animal reservoirs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculus_medinensis#Animal_reservoirs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculus_medinensis#Animal_...)