{"id":63543,"date":"2016-02-04T00:36:54","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T22:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/uk-partners-with-jimmy-carter-to-eradicate-guinea-worm\/"},"modified":"2016-02-04T00:36:54","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T22:36:54","slug":"uk-partners-with-jimmy-carter-to-eradicate-guinea-worm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/uk-partners-with-jimmy-carter-to-eradicate-guinea-worm\/","title":{"rendered":"UK partners with Jimmy Carter to eradicate Guinea worm"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON, United Kingdom, February 3, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — <\/span><\/p>\n

Britain is partnering with The Carter Center to help make Guinea worm only the second human disease in history to be eradicated, International Development Minister Nick Hurd and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced today.
\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Department for International Development is providing \u00a34.5 million in new support for the Carter Center\u2019s Guinea Worm Eradication Programme.<\/p>\n

The funding will pay for health volunteers, water filters and larvicide in the few remaining endemic villages in South Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad and Mali. It will also support surveillance campaigns in 6000 villages across these four remaining endemic countries as well as education campaigns to ensure the disease doesn’t resurface.<\/p>\n

Guinea worm disease is a parasite caused by drinking infected water. The worm grows inside the body, causing severe pain for up to a year. The worm, which can reach up to a metre in length, eventually emerges through the skin, usually from the leg, causing intense pain and disability which can last for months.<\/p>\n

The Carter Center began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease in 1986, when there were an estimated 3.5 million cases annually in Africa and Asia. Last month the Center announced that only 22 people worldwide had contracted the disease in 2015.<\/p>\n

UK International Development Minister Nick Hurd said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGuinea worm is a truly horrendous disease, causing unimaginable pain and suffering. The fact that we are now so close to eradicating it is one of the great public health success stories of modern times.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe tremendous progress we have made in tackling this disease would not have been possible without the personal commitment of Jimmy Carter and his Carter Center. UK aid has played a key role supporting their efforts, but it\u2019s clear that without continued backing there is a real risk of a resurgence in the disease.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis new aid package from the UK will fund the last push to eradicate Guinea Worm, supporting the treatment, prevention and education campaigns needed to finally consign this disease to the history books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said:<\/p>\n

\u201cGuinea worm eradication is possible because of the steadfast support from partners like the British government. The UK continues to demonstrate its willingness and staying power to eradicate this debilitating disease, and today’s newest pledge is another example of DFID’s commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The UK has been one of the world\u2019s largest supporters of the Guinea worm eradication campaign, providing \u00a330 million to the Carter Center\u2019s Guinea Worm Eradication Programme between 2009 and 2015.<\/p>\n

\n

President Carter is visiting London to focus on Carter Center health efforts, including\u00a0 the launch of the international display of the exhibition Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease. The exhibition was created by the American Museum of Natural History in collaboration with The Carter Center and is on display at the London School of Hygiene Tropical Medicine from 5 February-6 May, 2016. For more information, visit www.bit.ly\/countdown-tozero.<\/p>\n

\n

Editor\u2019s note: President Carter will visit the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster on Wednesday 3 February to deliver a lecture on the eradication of Guinea worm disease, as part of the Lord Speaker\u2019s global lecture series. \u00a0His lecture will be livestreamed beginning at 5.30pm GMT on Parliament TV and on www.cartercenter.org.\u00a0 President Carter\u2019s lecture will be followed by a question answer session, and the public can submit questions to President Carter on Twitter using\u00a0#askJimmyCarter.\u00a0 Follow the conversation live via @cartercenter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON, United Kingdom, February 3, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — Britain is partnering with The Carter Center to help make Guinea worm only the second human disease in history to be eradicated, International Development Minister Nick Hurd and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced today.\u00a0 The UK\u2019s Department for International Development is providing \u00a34.5 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-63543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}