Progress toward global eradication of dracunculiasis, January 2008-June 2009.

Dracunculiasis is a parasitic infection caused by Dracunculus medinensis. Persons become infected by drinking water from stagnant sources (e.g., ponds) contaminated by copepods (water fleas) that contain immature forms of the parasite. In 1986, the World Health Assembly (WHA) called for the eradication of dracunculiasis (Guinea worm disease) at a time when an estimated 3.5 million cases occurred annually in 20 countries in Africa and Asia and 120 million persons were at risk for the disease. Because of slow mobilization in countries with endemic disease, the global dracunculiasis eradication program did not meet the 1995 target date for eradicating dracunculiasis set by WHA in 1991. In 2004, WHA established a new target date of 2009 ; despite considerable progress toward global eradication, that target date also will not be met. This report updates continued progress toward global eradication of dracunculiasis since January 2008. At the end of December 2008, dracunculiasis was endemic in six countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan). The number of indigenous cases of dracunculiasis had decreased 52%, from 9,585 in 2007 to 4,619 in 2008. Of the 1,446 cases that occurred during January-June 2009, 1,413 (98%) were reported from Sudan and Ghana. Currently, insecurity (e.g., sporadic violence or civil unrest) in areas of Sudan and Mali where dracunculiasis is endemic poses the greatest threat to the success of the global dracunculiasis eradication program.