Photo of a Touareg girl showing a cup of drinking water

While the water is muddy, this is the only water that her family has access to. In addition to causing diarrheal diseases, drinking unsafe water like this can also transmit Guinea worm. The worms' eggs are ingested by drinking standing water, such as water from temporary ponds formed during the annual three-month rainy season. Nine months later, during the following year's rainy season, the parasite has grown into a long worm several feet long and will start to emerge from some part of the body. When the person enters a new pond formed by the new year's rain to draw water or bathe, the Guinea worm's head emerges and spit eggs into the water, which contaminates this new body of water and begins the transmission cycle anew.

Guinea worm is easily prevented by filtering water using such simple and accessible methods as filtering through a clean shirt or other cloth. Guinea worm also strikes at the most inopportune time - since it emerges from the person's body (a very painful process) during the rainy season, it often prevents the person from working in the fields, as the person will often not be able to walk. Multiple Guinea worms can also emerge from a single person, if s/he drank a significant amount of contaminated water during the previous year. Due to the nine-month cycle, it is often difficult for people to connect the cause and effect of drinking standing water and Guinea worm.

(By the way, when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger in the late 1990s, I spent my third year working with Niger's National Guinea Worm Eradication Program. When I went back to visit Niger in mid-2007, I was told that Guinea worm had been eradicated in my region - the region of this photo.)

The Carter Center, an organization established by former President Jimmy Carter, helps national Ministries of Health to eradicate Guinea worm. For more information, visit http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/index.html.

Ref: IMG25 Niger

Location: Bankilare Region, Niger