Guinea worm neared global eradication, with just 10 cases reported worldwide in 2025, all of them in Chad, Ethiopia, or South Sudan.
When former US President Jimmy Carter founded an eradication program in the mid-1980s, there were millions of infections in developing countries and the only human disease that had ever previously been permanently defeated was smallpox.
The parasitic infection, transmitted via contaminated water, leads to three-foot worms emerging from painful leg ulcers, and causes long-term incapacitation and disability. While Carter did not, as he hoped, outlive the last Guinea worm (he died in 2024), he may have come close; the 10 cases mark a 33% decrease year-on-year.
