Fighting Disease:  Kenya

Eradicating Guinea Worm Disease

Current Status: Transmission stopped, 1994
Certification of Dracunculiasis Eradication: Pending

For the most current Guinea worm case reports, read the Guinea Worm Wrap-Up newsletter >

Dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm disease, is a preventable parasitic infection contracted when a person ingests drinking water from stagnant sources containing copepods (commonly referred to as water fleas) that harbor infective Guinea worm larvae. Inside a person's body, the larvae grow for a year, becoming thin threadlike worms up to 1 meter long. These worms create agonizingly painful blisters in the skin through which they slowly exit the body, preventing the victim from attending school, caring for children, or harvesting crops. Learn more about the historic Carter Center-led campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease>

From 1993 to 1994, Kenya's Ministry of Health conducted village-by-village searches for cases of Guinea worm disease in districts adjacent to its borders with Uganda and Sudan, areas thought to be at greatest risk for having endemic disease. A total of 53 cases of Guinea worm disease, most of them imported from Sudan, were found in Turkana and West Pokot districts of Kenya.

To enhance case and outbreak searches, a reliable disease-reporting system was developed by the Ministry of Health with assistance from the World Health Organization. In 1995, Kenya reported only 23 cases of Guinea worm disease, but this time all cases were imported from Sudan, then the most endemic Guinea worm country in the world. It was documented that indigenous transmission of Guinea worm disease in Kenya was stopped when the West Pokot district reported no indigenous cases of the disease in 1994. This marked the occasion that allowed Kenya to become one of the first countries in the world to stop transmission of Guinea worm disease since the campaign began in 1986.

The Carter Center held a special ceremony in Atlanta in 2000 to honor Pakistan, Chad, Senegal, Cameroon, Yemen, India, and Kenya as becoming the first among the endemic nations to stop transmission of Guinea worm disease. Read more about the special ceremony (PDF) >

Countries that have reported zero cases for more than a year but neighbor South Sudan, such as Kenya, Chad, and Central African Republic, have not received official certification. With improved surveillance and reduction in imported cases from South Sudan, these countries, including Kenya, should be considered for certification sometime in the near future.

Learn more about the Carter Center's Guinea Worm Eradication Program in Kenya (in search result
format) >