Worm that tortured millions of people has been eradicated

Worm that tortured millions of people has been eradicated

A nasty worm that caused tens of millions of people to scream with unbearable pain has been largely eradicated: “No guinea worm was reported” in 2024.  Guinea worms used to inflict burning pain on millions of people in Africa and South Asia every year. They would grow up to 3 feet long while living inside a person’s body, then burst out of their foot or other sensitive areas of their anatomy, such as their eyeball or their penis.

With a guinea worm infection, you get a gross open wound from which the worm emerges over a period of weeks to months with extreme painfulness. There were millions of cases in the 80s, and now there are none. Incredible human progress.”

“It’s possible that the worm is evolutionarily adapted to cause prolonged pain and suffering. Since this will increase the chance that the host will put their foot in the water to soothe the pain, and that can help the worm get to the next stage in its life cycle,” notes a scientist.

“When The Carter Center began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases in at least 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Today, that number has been reduced by more than 99.99%.”

It is possible that a few people have gotten infected with guinea worm and don’t know it yet. As a professor notes, guinea worm “incubation time is 10-14 months. Fingers crossed till next summer.” But right now, it looks like no one on Earth is infected with guinea worm.

Thankfully, “no environmentalists advocated for protecting the habitat of this endangered species.”

“Guinea worm is poised to become the second human disease in history to be eradicated, following smallpox, as well as the first parasitic disease and the first without a medicine or vaccine.”

The Carter Center began working to eradicate Guinea worm disease after its founder visited “a tiny village in Ghana.” He

stumbled across a crying woman who appeared to be cradling a baby to her right breast. He stepped forward to talk to her – but he reeled back when he realized a 3ft-long worm was inching its way out of her nipple, at the centre of an engorged, purpling breast. It was one of 11 guinea worms taking a month or more to crawl out of the young woman’s body that summer. One was burrowing out from her vagina. The woman couldn’t speak; she could only howl.

She was living through a guinea worm infestation. One survivor, Hyacinth Igelle, says: “The pain is like if you stab somebody. It is like fire. You feel it even in your heart.” After seeing some victims, the journalist Nicholas Kristof called it “torture by worms”. The worm’s head causes a blister that often develops deadly tetanus; if the victims survive, they can starve because they have not been able to farm their fields for months. Many scholars now believe that when the Old Testament Israelites were afflicted by “fiery serpents” in their flesh, they were meeting this worm for the first time.

 

LU Staff

LU Staff

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