Fighting Disease:  The Republic of Sudan and The Republic of South Sudan

The historical information below references achievements that took place in the country formerly known as Sudan prior to South Sudan achieving independence in July 2011. Areas referenced as Sudan refer to the Republic of Sudan and areas referenced as Southern Sudan refer to areas now known as South Sudan.

Go to: Fighting River Blindness | Controlling Trachoma | Agriculture Program

Eradicating Guinea Worm Disease

Current status: Endemic
Indigenous cases reported in 2011:  1,028

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 >

Since 1995, The Carter Center has worked to reduce the cases of Guinea worm disease in Sudan and South Sudan through its Guinea Worm Eradication Program. Harboring the vast majority of the world's remaining cases in 2011, Southern Sudan has become the last frontier on the difficult path to eradicating this debilitating parasitic disease. However, despite the severe conditions the Southern Sudanese people experienced as a result of the civil war, both the northern and southern regions have made great progress overall in reducing their number of cases.  Since 2002, no indigenous cases have been reported in northern Sudan. The incidence of Guinea worm disease has been reduced in Sudan from 118,578 cases in 1996 to a total of 1,028 cases reported in Southern Sudan in 2011. Read full text >

Fighting River Blindness

River blindness is a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of small black flies that breed in rapidly flowing streams and rivers. The disease causes severe itching, eye damage, and often blindness but is preventable through health education and distribution of the medicine Mectizan®. Learn more about the Carter Center's campaign to eliminate river blindness from the Americas and to control it in Africa >

For additional information and updates on the program activities below, read the latest issue of Eye of the Eagle >

After the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended the decades-old civil war and created the semiautonomous government of South Sudan, The Carter Center River Blindness Program ceased its activities in South Sudan.  However, Carter Center Guinea worm eradication and trachoma elimination efforts continued in partnership with the government of South Sudan. Read full text >

Controlling Trachoma

The leading cause of preventable blindness in the world, trachoma is an excruciating bacterial disease endemic to the poorest countries of the world. Although not typically a fatal disease, severe trachoma is disabling, debilitating, and eventually leads to blindness. The Carter Center supports trachoma control in six African countries in partnership with trachoma-endemic communities, ministries of health, the Lions Clubs International Foundation, Pfizer Inc., and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. Learn more about the Carter Center's Trachoma Control Program >

The Carter Center has supported the trachoma control program in Sudan in collaboration with the federal Ministry of Health since 1999. Support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Lions Clubs International Foundation, and Pfizer Inc., has enabled trachoma prevalence mapping and implementation of SAFE strategy interventions. After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, The Carter Center extended its support to the newly formed government of Southern Sudan to administer trachoma control in two southern states — Jonglei and Eastern Equatoria — where the trachoma burden is among the worst in the world. Read full text >

Increasing Food Production

The Carter Center worked in Sudan from 1986 to 1992 through the Sasakawa-Global 2000 agricultural assistance program. The program has taught more than 8 million small-scale sub-Saharan African farming families new farming techniques to double, triple, or quadruple their yields of maize and other grains. Led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug until his death in 2009, the program was a joint venture between The Carter Center and the Sasakawa Africa Association. The program provided farmers with credit for fertilizers and enhanced seeds to grow test plots. These test plots often yielded 200 to 400 percent more crops, and farmers went on to teach other farmers, creating a ripple effect to stimulate self-sufficiency.

Improving crop yields solved only part of the problem: Farmers must store and then sell their crops, and transportation can be costly and inefficient. The program identified post-harvesting methods and local markets for these surpluses to decrease importing grains. The five-year project in Sudan was completed in 1992.

Read more about the Carter Center's agriculture work — with the Sasakawa-Africa Association — in
Sudan >