No guinea worm disease reported worldwide (provisionally) in January!! As of February 11, no case of Guinea worm disease has been reported worldwide for the first time since the eradication campaign began collecting surveillance data in 1981. Notably, this includes the first ever zero case month for South Sudan. This is not the end of Guinea worm disease-there will be cases later in 2013-but we can see the end from here. If the South Sudan Guinea Worm Eradication Program can match the performance of Ghana’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program in Ghana’s final three years (501 annual cases in 2008 to last case in May 2010, 18 months later: see Figure 1), and if Chad, Ethiopia and Mali follow suit, this war will be over.

Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library collection