Guinea Worm Drive Enters Final Stretch
South Sudan’s Ministry of Health and the Carter Center have unveiled a final three-year surveillance blueprint aimed at snuffing out the last vestiges of Guinea worm disease.
Health Minister Sarah Cleto Rial confirmed the plan in Juba after meeting Carter Center Vice President Craig Withers, marking what officials call the decisive phase of a two-decade campaign.
Funding Challenges Met with Resolve
Rial acknowledged that worldwide funding cuts, including reduced USAID support, have squeezed disease-control budgets, yet she stressed that community services will continue untouched.
“We will work together to ensure eradication, and we will not disappoint the Carter Center after all the investment they have made,” she told national broadcaster SSBC.
Stark Drop in Cases Fuels Optimism
Withers applauded South Sudan’s progress, noting that annual cases have plummeted from roughly twenty thousand in 2005-2006 to just two recorded this year.
He called the trajectory a testament to sustained village-level surveillance and said the program’s leadership “gives us confidence Guinea worm can be fully eradicated.”
Toward WHO Certification
Officials say three consecutive years without a single case would allow South Sudan to petition the World Health Organization for formal certification of elimination.
The newly launched surveillance phase is designed to deliver that milestone and position the young nation among the few globally that have banished the parasite.