This year in Chad, hundreds of cases of Guinea Worm have been reported in dogs. Hopefully next year things are better, given the bug’s annual life-cycle. In the affected communities, there have been substantial increases reported in safe disposal of fish entrails, which dogs have been eating. And perhaps the drug trial of anti-worm medications for dogs will be effective.
Updates as of August:
According to laboratory tests, the genome of Guinea worms emerging from dogs in Chad is indistinguishable from those emerging from humans in Chad, and the overwhelming majority of such worms in Chad are coming from infected dogs, not from infected humans
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Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Villages under surveillance and with dog outbreaks.
Enhanced health education of villagers to cook their fish well, to bury fish entrails, and not allow dogs to eat fish entrails began in October 2013 and covered half or more of the at-risk population starting around May 2015. Efforts to persuade villagers to tether infected dogs until the worm emerges in order to prevent contamination of water and infection of copepods began in February 2014. In May 2015, the program conducted 3,961 enhanced health education sessions in 606 villages and 3,450 sessions on tethering dogs and the cash reward for doing so in 530 villages. Offering of a cash reward (~US$20 equivalent) for reporting and tethering infected dogs began in February 2015 and may have contributed to some of the substantial increase in infected dogs seen this year compared to 2014 when a total of 113 infected dogs were reported for the entire year. Chad has offered a cash reward equivalent to about US$100 for reporting a case of GWD in humans since before 2010. The program should begin to see the impact of these interventions on the number of cases in humans and infections in dogs any time between now and May 2016, allowing for the one-year long incubation period. (Figure 4 and Figure 5).
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So far there is no evidence of a wild animal reservoir playing a role in transmission of GWD in Chad.
The update section for Ethiopia notes that one baboon was found with Guinea Worm this year, as well as 2014 and 2013. So there may be a wild animal reservoir, but hopefully not. Also the past coupe of years, ~3 dogs per year were found infected in Ethiopia, and this year the number of infected dogs is up to 17. In South Sudan the first dog case of Guinea Worm was reported in the September update, and the October update, mentioned a possible dog case in Mali.
As of September:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Safe disposal of fish entrails. Improvements.
The monthly numbers of infected dogs meanwhile continues to decline at the end of the peak transmission season as in recent years (Figure 4). Overall, 301 (70%) of 430 infected dogs have been tethered to date in 2015 (compared to 40% of infected dogs in 2014). As illustrated in Figure 4, according to the most recent surveys, 87% (401/461) of households in priority villages, 89% (1056/1185) of households in fishing villages, and 98% (261/266) of fish vendors were reportedly practicing safe disposal of fish entrails.
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We regret to announce the death of two United Nations staff, members of a humanitarian team assessing the status of Guinea worm disease in West Darfur State, on Tuesday 8 September 2015, when their vehicle was ambushed by unidentified gunmen about 40 kilometers from state capital Geneina, in the Kreinik area as the team was returning from its mission.
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY EXHIBIT EXTENDED The exhibition “Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease” which opened at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in January this year has been extended from its originally planned duration there of six months until January 2017 due to the exhibit’s popularity. The exhibit features the progress towards eradication of Guinea worm disease, but also includes material on smallpox and polio eradication, as well as elimination of lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis, and control of malaria, schistosomiasis and Ebola
