This Sunday, January 30 is the third World Day for Neglected Tropical Diseases. The WHO launched a new plan last year to fight against these twenty tropical pathologies linked to poverty which still affect a billion human beings, including dengue fever, river blindness or leprosy. Because the 2020 objectives have not yet been achieved, even if substantial progress has been made. Guinea worm disease, for example, is on the way to being eradicated from the planet. This is welcomed by the Carter Center, a pioneer in the fight against this scourge.
Only 14 Guinea worm patients were identified in 2021 in Chad, South Sudan, Mali and Ethiopia by The Carter Center. Half less than in 2020. When we know that this aquatic parasite contaminated 3.5 million people in the mid-1980s in 21 countries, we measure the progress made.
Dracunculiasis, contracted by drinking water contaminated by tiny crustaceans themselves fed on Guinea worm larvae, causes pain in the limbs, from which a meter-long worm must be extracted at the age adult. Sick humans and animals in turn contaminate water sources by bathing. There is no vaccine or treatment.
Sensitized populations
But communities and families have learned to report infections, to filter drinking water. To keep sick humans and animals away from water sources. To destroy or bury the corpses of fish that contaminated dogs and cats.
Awareness that paid off. In 2021, the DRC and Sudan will apply for certification as exempt countries, after 199 other states, including Cameroon in 2007.
►Also listen: Health priority – In Guinea, towards the elimination of sleeping sickness