Health Report: ‘Guinea Worm’ on Verge of Eradication

Dracunculiasis, or guinea-worm disease, is on the verge of eradication. The Carter Center says only 13 provisional human cases of the disease were reported worldwide in 2023. Dracunculiasis is a crippling neglected tropical parasitic disease transmitted mostly when people drink stagnant water contaminated with parasite-infected water fleas. The disease is rarely fatal, but infected people become unable to function for weeks and months. For more on the latest efforts in eradicating dracunculiasis, VOA’s Linord Moudou spoke to Adam Weiss, the director of the Guinea Worm Eradication Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.