Stomach acids dissolve the water fleas but can leave the larvae untouched. These millimetre-long crustaceans live in stagnant water, and people can swallow them when they drink from ponds, ditches or shallow wells. Guinea worms start out as minuscule larvae living inside water fleas of the genus Cyclops. The worm could be extinct by 2012, making dracunculiasis the second human disease ever to be eradicated – the first being smallpox. Last year, there were just 3142 in four countries in Africa. In 1986, there were nearly 4 million cases a year in 20 countries across south Asia and Africa.
Guinea worm was once widespread in Africa, the Middle East and many parts of Asia. The guinea worm ( Dracunculus, or little dragon) is probably the closest living equivalent to the monsters in the Alien movies – except we’re beating this enemy. The worms can cause paralysis or lethal bacterial infections, and even if you survive mostly unscathed, next year it can happen all over again. In extreme cases, you may host up to sixty of them, anywhere on your body. It can take up to two months to pull it out, inch by agonising inch, during which time it may be impossible to walk. The rest of the worm, about a metre long, remains inside your body. When the blister bursts, the head of a worm pops out, thin, white and very much alive. It feels, people say, like being stabbed with a red-hot needle. IT STARTS with a painful blister – a very painful blister.
Education is an important part of eradication
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