Dracunculiasis (Guinea worm disease) eradication

Since the seminal review by Ralph Muller about Dracunculus and dracuncullasis in this serial publication in 1971, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Carter Center forged, during the 1980s, a coalition of organizations to support a campaign to eradicate dracunculiasis. Eighteen of 20 countries were known in 1986 to have endemic dracuncullasis, i.e., Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. Transmission of the disease in Yemen was documented in 1995, and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Central African Republic endemic in 1995. As of the end of 2004, a total of 16026 cases of dracunculiasis were reported from 12 endemic countries (91% of these cases were reported from Ghana and Sudan, combined), a reduction greater than 99% from the 3.5 million cases of dracunculiasis estimated in 1986 to occur annually; the number of endemic villages has been reduced by > 91%, from the 23475 endemic villages in 1991; disease transmission has been interrupted in 9 of the 20 endemic countries; and WHO has certified 168 countries free of dracuncullasis, including Pakistan (1996), India (2000), Senegal and Yemen (2004). Asia is now free of dracuncullasis.