Jimmy Carter: "I'd Like to See the Last Guinea Worm Die Before I Do."
Source: Slate
In a touching and surprisingly funny moment during today’s press conference discussing his cancer diagnosis, former President Jimmy Carter said, when asked about his remaining priorities, "I’d like to see the last Guinea worm die before I do."
It may very well happen. As Carter noted, there are only 11 known cases of Guinea worm left in the world, in Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and South Sudan, down from 3.6 million people suffering from the disease when the Carter Center began its campaign against it in 1986.
The painful condition is caused by a long, threadlike worm that grows in a person’s body—usually in joints and extremities—after being ingested through contaminated water. The worms can grow to up to 3 feet long and emerge agonizingly through lesions in the skin. While usually not fatal, the disease can be debilitating for months on end.
What’s particularly impressive about the anti-Guinea worm campaign is that it’s been accomplished without any new medical or technological breakthroughs. There’s still no cure for Guinea worm, and the only way to treat it is agonizingly low-tech: The exposed part of the worm is wrapped around a stick and slowly pulled out. Rather than curing the disease, the Carter Center, working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and national health ministries, worked to educate communities about how the disease spreads and to provide water filtration methods. In an interview with NPR earlier this year, Carter said his center had chosen to focus on the disease because “it was in such remote villages that no one wanted to take on the task. So we decided to take it on.” In part because of these efforts, a disease that was once endemic in 31 countries in Asia and Africa is likely to be the second human disease after smallpox to be completely eliminated.
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Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/20/jimmy_carter_i_d_like_to_see_the_last_guinea_worm_die_before_i_do.html
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May Jimmy Carter indeed live to see this dreadful disease eradicated.
My heart is just so full in this moment. 
One of the very few true civil servants whom I admire and respect. I wasn't alive just yet during his administration, but it really frosts me to hear the vile rhetoric thrown around about the man from all the knuckle-dragging right wing mouth breathers all the time.
I hope his final days are peaceful and full of joy. 
In an interview with NPR earlier this year, Carter said his center had chosen to focus on the disease because “it was in such remote villages that no one wanted to take on the task. So we decided to take it on.”
JEC is the coolest, most level-headed, sincere, loving and caring, and intellectual person I've ever known. God, I'm going to miss him when he finally goes to his final reward. The planet is in DIRE need of people like this. And nobody asked him or paid him to do any of this. Unbelievable human being.
