A recent study report has proven that South Sudan is absolutely free from guinea worm disease, this brings the total number of African countries that have been confirmed guinea worm disease free to six.
“Guinea worm disease, which 30 years ago had afflicted more than three million people in 20 countries is now on the brink of eradication, suppression rate is at 98 per cent with just 26 cases in two countries,” says the ‘United to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases,’ 2018 report.
The report was released during the 30th Summit meeting of African Union Heads of State held in Ethiopia.
The meeting held discussions concerning issues of neglected tropical diseases, which have been a problem in the society.
The certified countries are Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda including South Sudan, the newcomer to the East African Community.
According to Ms Rachel Jones of the ‘Uniting to Combat NTDs’ support centre, she revealed that the scorecard reflecting how individual countries were faring revealed a score of yellow which shows that progress towards elimination of guinea worm by the year 2020, is fortunate.
Other progress revealed recently includes report from partnership between, ALMA, Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases and the WHO, declaring achieved success in eliminating five neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that affect the populations in Africa.
