Carter Center: Spread Of Guinea Worm Disease Stopped In South Sudan

South Sudan has gone 15 months without a single reported case of Guinea worm disease, the nation’s health minister said Wednesday, suggesting a major victory for global health officials trying to eliminate the painful affliction.

“To us as South Sudanese, we feel we have contributed to the common cause of humanity today, that we have played our part in realizing the dream of ridding the world of this debilitating disease,” Dr. Riek Gai Kok said in announcing transmission had been stopped in his country.

The Carter Center, one of the organizations leading global eradication efforts, said only one case of Guinea worm has been reported so far in 2018 in Chad, but cautioned that those numbers were preliminary and would likely rise. The center said 30 cases were reported last year in isolated areas of Ethiopia and Chad, a real achievement for efforts to eradicate a disease that only 30 years ago affected 3.5 million people a year in 21 countries across Africa and Asia.