Chasing the worm: scientists hope to New cases of guinea worm disease in Southern Sudan have recently fallen from 20 000 a year to an estimated 1500

摘要

Any observer of guinea worm disease, or dracunculiasis, will tell you that this water-borne parasitic disease should be simple to eradicate. After all, no vaccinations or costly drugs are needed, the disease cannot be passed from one person to another, and the wounds that the worm itself causes on a patient's body are handled effectively with what you would use for a scraped knee: clean water, antiseptic, gauze, and an antibacterial ointment.But eradication of the nematode, Dracuncu-lus medinensis, requires that most slippery of ingredients: a change in human behaviour. In fact it requires two changes, one of which is particularly difficult to effect because of the parasite's wily ways.