Voice 1
Thank you for joining us for today’s Spotlight. I’m Rebekah Schipper
Voice 2
And I’m Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
Hyacinth Igelle is a farmer. He lives in Ogi, a village in Nigeria. The people in the village do not have very much money, but they work very hard. Recently, Mr. Igelle has not been able to work. His hand hurts very badly. Mr. Igelle has a painful disease caused by a parasite, an organism living in his body. The parasite is called the guinea worm.
Today’s Spotlight is on this painful disease, and how people are trying to stop it from spreading.
Voice 2
In the village of Ogi there is a building made of dirt. The building is called the Guinea Worm Containment Center. Recently, Mr. Igelle stayed here with three [3] other patients. Workers give the patients containers of water to put their arms and legs in. Workers also give the patients three meals a day. This keeps them from working in the farm fields, and spreading the disease. You see, the disease is spread by putting an infected area of the body into drinking water.
Voice 1
The guinea worm begins life as a larva. The larvae are very small. They live in water with another small organism, the water flea. Water fleas eat the guinea worm larvae. But the larvae infect the fleas. When a person gathers drinking water, he also gathers the infected fleas. If he does not treat the water, and make it clean, the fleas enter his body. When the person’s body breaks down the flea, the guinea worm larvae are released. The larvae mate inside his body.
Voice 2
The male worm dies after mating, but the female worm stays in the body. The worm grows inside the person’s body. The female worm is long, thin and white. It can grow up to a meter long inside a person’s body! The worm usually moves to the lower parts of a person’s body. About a year later, the full grown female worm tries to leave the person’s body. It does this by releasing acid, a damaging chemical. This creates a blister, or wound, on the person’s body. The worm comes through the skin through this blister
Voice 1
Removing a worm from a person’s body is a long painful process. A person cannot remove the worm when it first comes through the skin. Since the worm is so long, it must be taken out slowly. If the worm breaks, the remaining part of the worm may cause a bad infection. The person must wrap the worm around a stick and pull it out a little bit every day. This may take weeks or even months to do. This is what happened to Mr. Igelle. The worm made his hand hurt very badly.
Voice 3
“The pain is like if you cut someone with a knife. It is like fire. It moves slowly, but you feel it even into your heart.”
Voice 2
The worm has begun to come out through Mr. Igelle’s skin. The guinea worm has caused his hand to grow larger. He is unable to hold tools to farm his field. The wound is too painful. The worm uses this pain to help it release its larvae. The pain makes Mr. Igelle want to put the wound in water. This reduces his pain. But when the worm reaches water, it releases a white cloud of larvae. This is how the larvae enter the drinking water of villages.
Voice 1
Many communities have suffered from Guinea worm disease for a very long time. But for the past twenty [20] years, communities in Africa and Asia have been fighting the Guinea worm. And they are winning the fight. Guinea worm disease may be the first disease since smallpox to be completely stopped.
Voice 2
Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States decided to lead the fight against the Guinea worm. His group raised money to help educate and treat people living in areas affected by Guinea worm disease. The group also organized people to treat infected water supplies all over the world.
Voice 1
Before the work of the Carter Center, Guinea worm was a problem through many countries in Central Africa and Asia. Today, half of those countries are Guinea worm free! One of the countries that still suffers from Guinea worm is Nigeria, where Mr. Igelle lives. Jacob Ogebe, a worker from the Carter Center is working in Mr. Igelle’s village.
Voice 2
Mr. Ogebe teaches the Nigerian villagers how to avoid infection from the Guinea worm. He believes education is the most important part in the fight against Guinea worms. Avoiding Guinea worm larvae can be easy. The infected water fleas come from drinking water. People just have to pour the water through a filter cloth. The cloth stops the infected fleas.
Voice 1
Avoiding the water fleas can be easy. But the Carter Center also wants to stop the Guinea worm from living in drinking water. Carter Center workers do this in two ways. First, they educate people about the problem of putting infected arms and legs in drinking water. This prevents the worms from entering the water. The second way is by adding a pesticide to the water. This chemical pesticide kills only the small organisms that carry the Guinea worm larvae. The fish, plants and other animals living in the water are safe. The pesticide makes the water safe for people to drink.
Voice 2
But Mr. Ogebe had some difficulty in some areas of Nigeria. To stop the Guinea worm, he must treat all the water in the area. But some villagers did not want him adding chemicals to some of their ponds, or small lakes. The villagers think that some ponds are special. They believe their ancestor’s spirits live in the water. Some villagers would not let Mr. Ogebe add the pesticide to the water. They even tried to hide some of the ponds.
Voice 1
Mr. Ogebe talked and worked with village officials. He explained how important it was to treat the water. After some time, the village agreed to let workers treat the water. The village of Ogi will soon be free from the Guinea worm.
Voice 2
Communities in many countries have worked very hard to destroy the Guinea worm. Officials from the Carter Center think that in five [5] years Guinea worm will no longer be a problem. Today, there are only nine [9] countries that still suffer from this disease.
Voice 1
Stopping a disease takes a lot of effort. It takes cooperation, communication, and education. People in the villages work together to prevent water from becoming infected. Local workers from the Carter Center have worked with villagers to educate them about the disease. And Carter Center officials have raised money to pay for research and tools for villages. Fighting a disease takes many people working together. And in this fight, everyone wins.
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