“..Parasite lost: Exterminating Africa’s horror worms..”
“..It starts with a painful blister - a very painful blister.
It feels, people say, like being stabbed with a red-hot needle.
When the blister bursts, the head of a worm pops out, thin, white and very much alive.
The rest of the worm, about a metre long, remains inside your body.
It can take up to two months to pull it out, inch by agonising inch, during which time it may be impossible to walk.
In extreme cases, you may host up to sixty of them, anywhere on your body.
The worms can cause paralysis or lethal bacterial infections .. and even if you survive mostly unscathed .. next year it can happen all over again.
The guinea worm (Dracunculus, or little dragon) is probably the closest living equivalent to the monsters in the Alien movies -
- except we’re beating this enemy.
Guinea worm was once widespread in Africa, the Middle East and many parts of Asia.
In 1986, there were nearly 4 million cases a year in 20 countries across south Asia and Africa.
Last year, there were just 3142 in four countries in Africa.
The worm could be extinct by 2012, making dracunculiasis the second human disease ever to be eradicated -
- the first being smallpox..”
go to source/story>>Parasite lost: Exterminating Africa’s horror worms - 10 March 2010 - New Scientist