Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter tries to comfort 6-year-old Ruhama Issah at Savelugu (Ghana) Hospital as a Carter Center technical assistant dresses Issah's extremely painful Guinea worm wound.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana     Date: Feb. 8, 2007     Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

Pipe filters – individual filtration devices worn around the neck, which work similarly to a straw, allowing people to filter their water to avoid contracting Guinea worm disease – are used by children and adults when drinking from local water sources.

Location: Southern Sudan     Date: March 2002     Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version

The Guinea Worm Containment Centre in Ogi, Nigeria, provides medical care for people affected by Guinea worm disease.

Location: Nigeria     Date: 2004      Credit: The Carter Center      Download High Resolution Version

At Savelugu Hospital in Northern Region, Ghana, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, watch as a Guinea worm health worker dresses a child's extremely painful Guinea worm wound.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 8, 2007       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

Guinea worms are thin, thread-like parasites. Inside the human body they can grow up to 3 feet long before emerging through the skin.

Location: n/a       Date: n/a       Credit: The Carter Center      Download High Resolution Version

A local volunteer in Southern Sudan uses a flip chart to educate villagers on Guinea worm disease prevention.

Location: Southern Sudan       Date: 2008       Credit: The Carter Center/J. Albertson      Download High Resolution Version

A sign warns those with Guinea worm disease not to enter the water. When the worms create agonizingly painful blisters in the skin, through which they slowly exit the body, people often seek relief by soaking in water. However, when people with emerging worms bathe or step in sources of drinking water, a worm will release hundreds of thousands of eggs, or larvae, into the water. Water fleas then eat the larvae, and people who drink unfiltered water from the pond become infected -- continuing the life cycle of the parasite.

Location: Taha, Ghana       Date: March 2006       Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version

Guinea worm disease is a major impediment to a farmer's ability to work. Dressed in his farming clothes, Nuru Ziblim, a Guinea worm health volunteer in Ghana, educates children on how to use pipe filters when they go to the fields with their families. Pipe filters, individual filtration devices worn around the neck, work similarly to a straw, allowing people to filter their water to avoid contracting Guinea worm disease while away from home.

Location: Ghana       Date: February 2008       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

A young child in Southern Sudan is comforted as a medical volunteer extracts an emergent Guinea worm.

Location: Southern Sudan       Date: 2008       Credit: The Carter Center/J. Albertson      Download High Resolution Version

A woman uses her pipe filter to drink from a local pond.

Location: Ogi, Nigeria       Date: October 2004       Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version

Some people, especially nomadic groups, receive pipe filters, which are small straw-like personal filters that can be worn around the neck. These simple but revolutionary devices enable people to drink water safely no matter where they are.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: July 11, 2006       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Rotondo      Download High Resolution Version

A woman in the village of Ogi, Nigeria filters drinking water.

Location: Nigeria       Date: 2004       Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version

At age six, Sadia Mesuna spent two months at the Carter Center's Guinea worm containment center in Savalugu, Ghana for treatment of the painful disease. A year later, Sadia is Guinea worm-free and can now participate in her family's daily activities.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 23, 2008       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

Patients with Guinea worms soak their hanging worms or wounds prior to their daily morning treatment at containment centers to facilitate easier removal and control the release of Guinea worm larvae.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 4, 2007      Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

This Nigerian woman is gathering water from a local pond, which is used as a source of drinking water. However, to prevent Guinea worm disease, this water must be filtered, in order to remove the copepods (water fleas) that carry the parasitic larvae of the Guinea worm.

Location: Nigeria       Date: 2004      Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version

The emerging Guinea worm is wound around a moist bandage to prevent it from breaking.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 6, 2007       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

Education is an important part of surveillance and case reduction. Here, flip charts are used to show schoolchildren how Guinea worm is contracted and what they must do to prevent it. Education and low-technology measures to promote behavioral change are especially important because there is no medicine or vaccine to prevent Guinea worm disease.

Location: Wantugu, Ghana       Date: March 16, 2006       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

In the village of Ogi, Nigeria, a village volunteer inspects the length of a Guinea worm emerging from a man's calf. Nigeria was once the most Guinea worm-endemic country in the world reporting over 650,000 cases in 1988.

Location: Nigeria       Date: 2004       Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version

While at the containment center in Savalugu, Ghana, Sadia Mesuna and her friend Fatawu Yakubu look at a picture book about Guinea worm disease, learning that "you get Guinea worm from the water. If you drink it unfiltered, you get Guinea worm," Sadia said.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 5, 2007       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

Volunteer Sulley Zakari treats Hubeida Iddirisu at her home in Ghana in February 2007. She had three painful Guinea worms emerging from her body that year.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 4, 2007       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

Displacement by war and nomadic lifestyles in Southern Sudan make pipe filters—distributed to men, women, and children—the most effective tool against contracting Guinea worm disease.

Location: Southern Sudan       Date: 2008       Credit: The Carter Center/J. Albertson      Download High Resolution Version

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter addresses Ghanaian children outside Savelugu Hospital, asking "Who here has had Guinea worm disease?" Amid the scorching heat of peak dry season, President Carter visited the parched community of Savelugu to meet with dozens of Guinea worm disease victims in an effort to bring global attention to Ghana's growing Guinea worm epidemic caused by inadequate water supply in the country.

Location: Savelugu, Ghana       Date: Feb. 8, 2007       Credit: The Carter Center/L. Gubb      Download High Resolution Version

A woman uses a Carter Center-donated fine mesh filter cloth fitted over a clay pot used to hold water. Filtering the tiny water fleas out of drinking water is the most effective way to prevent Guinea worm disease.

Location: Togo       Date: March 1, 2001       Credit: The Carter Center/E. Staub      Download High Resolution Version