Jimmy Carter spent nearly four decades waging war to eliminate an ancient parasite plaguing the world's poorest people. Rarely fatal but searingly painful and debilitating, Guinea worm disease infects people who drink water tainted with larvae that grow inside the body into worms as long as 3 feet. The noodle-thin parasites then burrow their way out, breaking through the skin in burning blisters. Carter made eradicating Guinea worm a top mission of the Carter Center, the nonprofit he and his wife, Rosalynn, founded after leaving the White House. As the AP reports, the former president rallied public health experts, billionaire donors, African heads of state, and thousands of volunteer villagers to work toward eliminating a human disease for only the second time in history.
"It'd be the most exciting and gratifying accomplishment of my life," Carter said in 2016. Even after entering hospice in February 2023, aides said Carter kept asking for Guinea worm updates. Thanks to the Carters' efforts, the worms that afflicted an estimated 3.5 million people in 20 African and Asian countries when the center launched its campaign in 1986 are on the brink of extinction. Only 13 human cases were reported across four African nations in 2023, according to the Carter Center. The World Health Organization's target for eradication is 2030. Carter Center leaders hope to achieve it sooner. "If someone's hurt, the Carter Center will help," says Mathew Manyiel, listening to a training session in Jarweng, South Sudan.
Those who worked with Carter suspect the Guinea worm's toll on poor African farmers resonated with the former president, who lived as a boy in a Georgia farmhouse without electricity or running water. "Nobody was doing anything about it, and it was such a spectacularly awful disease," said Dr. Donald Hopkins, who led the center's health programs until 2015. Carter's fundraising enabled the center to pour $500 million into fighting Guinea worm. He persuaded manufacturers to donate larvicide, nylon cloth, and specially made drinking straws to filter water. His visits to afflicted villages often attracted news coverage, raising awareness globally. Even after being diagnosed with brain cancer, Carter remained focused: "I'd like the last Guinea worm to die before I do," he said in 2015. More here.
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