The world is creeping closer to eliminating human Guinea worm, the parasitic disease that has long afflicted parts of Africa with agonizing pain when the worm exits the body through painful blistering skin lesions, the Carter Center said. In a report released Friday, the center said only 10 human cases were recorded in 2025, confined to three countries—Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
The Carter Center said Chad reported four human cases in 2025, Ethiopia reported four, and South Sudan reported two. It described the total as a historic low and said it reflected a 33% decline from 15 cases reported in 2024. The center also said Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Mali reported zero human cases for the second straight year.
The latest figures come after the death of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose name is closely tied to Guinea worm eradication efforts. When Carter’s center launched the eradication program in the mid-1980s, Carter said at the time it aimed to eliminate Guinea worm in the future, and the parasite still afflicted millions of people in developing countries, the Carter Center said. Adam Weiss, director of the center’s Guinea worm eradication program, told the Associated Press that the focus on getting to zero cases continues even as the numbers have shrunk.
“We think about President Carter’s legacy and his push to get to zero cases,” Weiss said in an interview. “These might not be seen as the number one problems in the world, but they are the number one problems for people that suffer from these diseases. So we continue to charge ourselves with his mission of alleviating as much pain and suffering as we can.”
Although the number of human cases has fallen, the Carter Center said animal infections remain a major challenge. It said animal infections were still in the hundreds in 2025, with some countries showing declines while overall numbers were slightly higher, making it harder to predict when Guinea worm could be eradicated. The center reported that animal infections included 147 cases in Chad, 445 in Cameroon, 70 in Angola, 17 in Mali, three in South Sudan and one in Ethiopia.
The Carter Center said Guinea worm spreads when people consume water containing larvae, which then grow inside an infected person to a length as much as a meter and a diameter compared to spaghetti before exiting through a blister. The center said transmission can occur when people who are suffering from the condition immerse themselves in water to ease symptoms, depositing larvae that others may then consume. It said a similar cycle can occur through land animal infections when infected animals reach the same water sources, and that humans can also become infected by eating fish or amphibious creatures that have consumed larvae.
The Carter Center said its long-running eradication effort has worked alongside government health ministries and other organizations for decades, training volunteers, educating communities and distributing water filters in affected areas. It said there is no treatment for Guinea worm, though infected people can take pain medication.
Weiss said the next step for the program is developing diagnostic tests, especially for animals, to detect infection before people or animals become symptomatic. He said testing early would allow behavioral changes to minimize or eliminate the chances of infected animals or people entering water sources that could spread more larvae.
The Carter Center also said Chad and other partner countries are part of the reason the program has been able to keep pushing toward eradication, citing long-term field work supported by the World Health Organization and local officials. It added that Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, traveled extensively across affected countries with Carter Center staff.
Weiss said President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the World Health Organization and pull back funding and U.S. involvement in some international aid efforts has forced changes in the center’s work on Guinea worm and other areas. He said, however, that it has not stopped the Guinea worm program at ground level.