Word: wormed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...horrified to find out later that the worm was one of 11 that had thrived in the young woman's body that season. And in that primitive settlement, she was among 200 or so people, out of a population of 500, infected. Villagers of all ages were too weak to walk or permanently scarred and crippled. As a result, a community would go hungry because its farmers were too sick to work the fields...
Encountering those victims firsthand, particularly the teenagers and small children, propelled me and Rosalynn to step up The Carter Center's efforts to eradicate guinea worm disease. The image of the young woman's suffering not only personalized the illness but also forced me to view life for the first time through the eyes of the poor, the powerless and the voiceless and to come to terms with how the quality of their existence affects the world at large. I realized too that I could have done more when I was President to help people in developing countries...
...sensibility to do things differently. Working on behalf of The Carter Center, we persuaded other organizations--including the World Health Organization, unicef, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Peace Corps--to join in the fight against the illness. When we started fighting the disease, guinea worm was in 20 African and Asian countries. Today, I'm happy to say, we are tackling the last cases. Fewer than 10,000 people are still afflicted in five African countries, compared with 3.5 million...
...never did see that young woman again or find out what happened to her. But the following year when we returned to her village, guinea worm had been nearly eliminated there, through the efforts of The Carter Center, other organizations and the villagers themselves. Having seen her that day in 1988, I came to examine life differently--in a micro way. I now believe that the vitality of one person's life has an impact on the health and harmony of the surrounding world...
...Help To learn more about guinea worm disease and other initiatives at The Carter Center, go to cartercenter.org