Word: worm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...assembled to greet us. She appeared to be in excruciating pain, and it looked as if she were cradling a baby in her right arm. As I approached, I was shocked to see that she was not holding a baby but her grossly swollen right breast. A guinea worm was emerging from the nipple, causing her a fiery agony as it migrated through her body. Here was the most graphic and disturbing example I had ever seen of the centuries-old guinea worm disease and all its devastating consequences. Although the scourge was preventable, it was ravaging the most neglected...
...health workers regroup to discuss their findings, the volunteers voice their frustrations with a disease that is so harmful yet so easily preventable. Like his colleagues, Vitus Naporow, an Area Coordinator working for the Ghana Guinea Worm Eradication Program, cannot understand why his community resists the simple steps that would eradicate Guinea worm from the area...
...been doing health education in the schools, in the houses, telling them to filter water, telling them that Guinea worm is from the water. But some will say it's in the blood. How else can we tell them?" Naporow wonders...
...drinking water has been filtered, and rather than wading into Wantugu's dam and potentially re-contaminating the water, some women stand on stones at the water's edge as they fetch. At one point the most endemic community in Ghana, Wantugu has experienced a large reduction in Guinea worm cases recently, from 414 cases in 2006 to 193 cases in 2007. Says Naporow: "Last year at this time we would do case searches and still find hanging worms, everywhere...
...today's case search, however, no "hanging" worms are found - only two "suspected cases", people with swollen sores that may be a Guinea worm yet to emerge. The health staff will visit them daily until they can determine if the sore is a worm or not. In a few weeks, the volunteers will repeat the search for cases of Guinea worm in another section of Wantugu. They will continue to check filters, continue to educate their neighbors, and continue to hope that, in the end, they will not find anything...