alt Hacker NewsGuinea worm on track to be 2nd eradicated human disease; only 10 cases in 2025
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I was going to say, "finally something that ivermectin can help with!" except https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7974686/
The free market could never accomplish something like this.
I worked for the Carter Center in South Sudan for a little less than a year in 2011. It was an extraordinarily tough job and required perseverance, humility, creative problem solving, negotiation, and acceptance. Events outside our control, like civil war, made eradication even harder.
The Carter Center teams should be very proud of what they accomplished. It would’ve been nice to get it done before Jimmy passed though
The eradication program works by offering cash rewards for reporting cases in areas where the worm is present. Those reports are then investigated and followed to prevent transmission and identify the source.
Clever. I wonder if the same model can be reused for other diseases.
An example:
https://www.who.int/news/item/11-04-2014-south-sudan-introdu...
Any individual presenting with the disease who meets all the criteria for containment is now rewarded with 500 South Sudanese pounds (SSP). The informer is given 100 SSP.
Take THAT, God! ;-)
Sounds like there is still some way to go:
> To fully eradicate the disease, cases in animals (infected by the same species of worm) must also be wiped out. In 2025, animal cases were detected in Chad (147 cases), Mali (17), Cameroon (445), Angola (70), Ethiopia (1), and South Sudan (3).
> only 10 cases in 2025
10 _known_ cases
The decrease from 3.5 million cases to only 15 is impressive but I don't see how we can eradicate zoonoses
RFK Jr: “Not so fast”
Please share this with someone who doesn't know the story yet. Ingenuity alone can't save our species. We also need the will to do good. We are living through a moment of deep cynicism about our ability to solve existential problems. Let this be a reminder of what we are capable of.