Fighting Disease:  Yemen

Eradicating Guinea Worm Disease

Current Status: Transmission stopped, 1997
Certification of Dracunculiasis Eradication: 2004

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 >

In a land of arid mountains and seasonal rains, Yemen's water sources are scarce, and waterborne illnesses present a particular threat to the Yemeni people. However, in 1997, Yemen finally defeated a debilitating waterborne parasitic disease when it reported zero cases of Guinea worm disease for 12 consecutive months, which meant disease transmission had stopped.

Yemen was known to be endemic to Guinea worm disease in the 19th and early 20th centuries, yet by the late 1980s when the global campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease began, it was thought Yemen no longer harbored the disease. The remoteness of the affected villages and insecurity due to banditry and hostage-taking in these areas led to the apparent disappearance of the disease.

Technical assistance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Yemen's Guinea Worm Eradication Program in 1995 led to the establishment of a reward system for reporting cases of Guinea worm disease. After hearing this news, a Yemeni member of Parliament was the first to report an incidence of Guinea worm in one of the villages he represented.

Following this, 72 cases of Guinea worm disease were reported from Dhamar governorate, five from Sana'a governorate, and one from Taize governorate. House-to-house and market searches for cases of the disease were also employed. By 1997, Yemen stopped transmission of Guinea worm disease.

As in other countries, Yemen's Guinea Worm Eradication Program intervened against transmission of the disease by providing health education; distributing nylon filters to strain out the tiny water fleas that host infected larvae; treating stagnant sources of drinking water with ABATE® larvicide (donated by BASF Corporation); and advocating with water sector organizations for the provision of safe sources of drinking water. Supervised by the program, trained village volunteers carried out monthly surveillance and interventions.

The Carter Center held a special ceremony in Atlanta in 2000 to honor Yemen, Senegal, Cameroon, Chad, Pakistan, India, and Kenya for having stopped Guinea worm disease transmission.

In 2004, the World Health Organization certified the nation as Guinea-worm-free. Read more about Guinea worm disease eradication in Yemen (PDF) >

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