Carter Center continues efforts to eradicate Guinea worm disease
Adam Weiss, the director of the Guinea Worm Eradication Program at the Carter Center, says Guinea worm disease is a parasitic disease that is contracted by drinking contaminated water.
“Many people in the endemic areas rely on stagnant sources of water to drink from,” said Weiss on Thursday’s edition of “Closer Look.”
He further explained that Guinea worm disease has been mostly found in Sub-Sharan Africa, Asia and the Middle East and the disease has a one-year incubation period before a worm emerges from an infected person’s body.
Weiss says efforts to eradicate the disease started in the 1980s when an estimated 3.5 million infections spread across 20 countries in Sub-Sharan Africa.
“It’s pretty mindbending to think that there’s only 14 people with this disease in a world of nearly 8 billion people,” said Weiss.
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