Interesting confluence of circumstances making this possible. For one thing, the worm can't survive in any form outside humans for any significant period of time; there's no dormant form that can lurk in the soil or water, and it apparently can't infect other animals. So if all humans were infection-free for 2-3 weeks (the longest its larvae can live in water supplies), it'd completely die out. And on top of that, it can infect humans through only one route, and that's a route that can be blocked with basic measures not requiring technological sophistication (e.g. filtering water through cloth), because it enters only via ingestion of macroscopic fleas that contain the larvae.
In other words, basic sanitation would have wiped this life form out - its continued existence speaks of tens of thousands of years of unbroken poverty. And it is only being eradicated because of cleverly-invented measures that can be undertaken while still poor.
Humanity, shame on you for leaving these people behind.
No, it's particularly that kind of rah-rah I'm pointing out the hole in. Our well-resourced science and our well-resourced NGOs have allowed us to construct and communicate a solution to a disease of poverty that works without lifting them out of poverty.
It's certainly a small improvement, but lionizing it uncritically amounts to justifying the status quo.
So you're saying that the only acceptable solution is to lift these people out of poverty? What about the people that are affected in the meantime? The end of poverty isn't something that's just waiting for someone to snap their fingers for it to come to a crashing halt.
Also, depending on where you're talking about in the world, poverty is dependent on the local political situation. See North Korea for example. If I sent boatloads of supplies and money to North Korea, what are the chances that they were reach the common man (instead of going towards the military and ruling elite)?
Many kinds of adequate sanitation would not have resulted in filtering the water as appropriate to exclude the parasites.
Even the wealthiest still drank water that ultimately came from the watering hole, thousands of years ago. Without much scientific understanding there is little reason to believe effective intervention would have been hoarded by the rich.
1. It's only fairly recently that anyone could eliminate this parasite, so I don't know how you can speak of "tens of thousands of years of unbroken poverty". Almost half of Europe was killed off by disease less than a thousand years ago, and the flu was still killing fifty million people less than a hundred years ago.
2. You imply that the methods employed--cloth filters and larvicide--are carefully constructed to reveal as little as possible to the villagers in order to keep them "still poor". I suppose it's just coincidence that they also happen to be the most cost effective and direct methods?
3. This is exactly how poverty is ended. Previously, this parasite would consume the time and health of the people of South Sudan. Now, they have those resources to spend in a manner of their choosing, such as learning about how to improve other aspects of their lives.
I can bet that the first persons calling for this system "filtration" to be used, or maybe boiling water before drinking, would be called sorcerers, stupid, would be ridiculed, etc
But still, the solution found was good and it's a "reality check" for those "TED speakers" that created a new filter that "only costs $200"
I am not sure.... I wasn't sure if the SA article was saying that the worm only could exist in humans or that it had been eradicated everywhere else (perhaps because humans might be a preferred host).
It turns out the worm's lifecycle is fascinating. The embryos apparently are parasites of water fleas, and are consumed by humans when they drink water containing infected water fleas. The embryos then burrow into the intestines and from there into other tissues.
