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CDC: Dracunculiasis cases potentially ‘historic low’ for 2013
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Since the World Health Assembly called for dracunculiasis elimination in 1986, incidence of the disease declined to 542 reported cases in 2012, according to the CDC.
This represents a decrease of 49% from the 1,058 cases reported in 2011. In 1986, the estimated incidence of dracunculiasis, also known as Guinea worm, was 3.5 million cases per year in 20 endemic countries in Africa and Asia, according to the report in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The disease remains endemic in four countries: Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and South Sudan. From January to June 2013, there were 89 cases reported in 28 villages in these countries. From January to June 2012, there were 393 cases in 51 villages. From 2012 to 2013, there was a 77% reduction in cases and a 45% reduction in the number of villages affected.
“Based on the trend for 2012, when approximately three-quarters of all reported cases occurred [from January to June], and initial findings for the same period of 2013, fewer than 150 cases of dracunculiasis likely will be reported in 2013,” the researchers wrote. “If so, this would be a historic low.”
WHO certifies countries as free from dracunculiasis when the country maintains adequate surveillance for at least 3 years and documents no indigenous cases of the disease during that time. At the end of 2011, 192 countries were certified as dracunculiasis-free and 14 remain to be certified.
Challenges to dracunculiasis elimination include failures in surveillance and containment, establishment and maintenance of surveillance in dracunculiasis-free areas of countries where the disease still occurs, and providing clean drinking water to as many targeted villages as possible.
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