Guinea Worm Disease (GWD): soon to be a thing of the past?The Wikipedia article for smallpox begins&

Guinea Worm Disease (GWD): soon to be a thing of the past?

The Wikipedia article for smallpox begins “Smallpox was…”. 

Think on that for a second. We as a species managed to eradicate from the earth an unthinking killer of thousands. 

Almost forty years later, we might be able to stamp another disease out. The parasitic Guinea worm is remains in just over 120 known cases and is on the brink of vanishing forever.

Infections occur when a person drinks contaminated drinking water, and cases can culminate in people suffering from the pain of dozens of emerging worms, each over a meter long, bursting from anywhere on their body. No need for a Google image search if you’re squeamish. 

The parasite is being fought through education on the dangers of contaminated water and the use of special filtered straws that remove the parasite from it. Already, the disease has been vanquished in India and Pakistan using these methods. Without further human hosts (the only species that the worm infects), the last of these parasites will eventually disappear and drinking water in Ghana and Sudan will be left a fair bit safer.