Dracunculiasis eradication: global surveillance summary, 2010

Overview

In 2004, the World Health Assembly reiterated its call for dracunculiasis to be eradicated, and in Resolution 57.9 urged Member States where the disease is endemic and their partners to achieve eradication by 2009. Although this target could not be fully met by 2009, significant progress has been made: at the end of 2010 only 4 of 20 formerly endemic countries remained endemic. Altogether, 94% of cases in 2010 were reported from southern Sudan – where the eradication programme was the last to be fully scaled up after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 – so the eradication goal is now within reach. Nigeria, which had the highest number of cases in the world in 1989, achieved interruption of transmission in 2008 and remained free of the disease throughout 2009 and 2010. Ghana, which had reported the second highest number of cases in 1989, has remained free of new cases since June 2010.