Monday, November 11, 2013

Monday Evening Uplift

Having a hard time of it, this Monday? Tired already, and it’s still just the first day of the week? In need of a little inspiration?
You might consider a Chicago doctor, Donald R. Hopkins, who’s had a long distinguished career in tropical medicine. How distinguished? Well, he was one of the team that eradicated smallpox, which left people looking like this….
Nor was that the worst of it: smallpox also killed about a third of its victims. It also was a cause of blindness, and left victims scarred for life. And the disease, which is thought to have started in humans in 10,000BC, was eradicated in the late seventies.
Hopkins has an interesting history—he grew up in a community of Bahamians in Coconut Grove in Miami. Education was important in his family, and he scored a scholarship to study at Moreland in Atlanta. Then it was off to the University of Chicago, where he was the only black student in his class in medical school. And then, partly to avoid the Vietnam War, he joined the Public Health Service.
And he was interested in tropical diseases, because he had seen trachoma in Egypt; the parasitical disease spread by flies that leads to blindness. In 1967, his boss asked him to go to Sierra Leone, to spearhead a new approach to fighting smallpox: instead of vaccinating the mass population, teams would attack individual outbreaks, starting at the center and working outward. Would it work? Yes.
Hopkins went back to the C.D.C., and rose through the ranks, finally retiring as acting director in 1987. But he didn’t stop working, and he joined up with former president Carter to tackle still another problem: the guinea worm.
Gentle Reader, you may want to skip this paragraph, and for the truly squeamish, you definitely don’t want to see the video below, which features—at 2:00—a guinea worm being extracted from a human leg. Because that’s what happens: villagers drink water infested with microscopic worms, which grow for a year or so and then emerge, from any part of the body, though usually it’s the legs or arms.
And unlike smallpox, the disease doesn’t kill—it just incapacitates. And as you might imagine, it’s very painful, since the worm secretes an acid which breaks down connective tissue and allows it to escape. No wonder that the disease is called dracunculiasis, or “afflicted with little dragons.” Also no wonder that the first reaction of anybody who has had the worm extracted is to put their injured leg in water. It might be a good idea for the victim, but it’s definitely a bummer for the rest of the village, because the moment the wound is immersed, millions of larvae are released. So the cycle starts all over.
The worldwide program to eradicate the disease began in 1980 with the C.D.C.; in 1986, The Carter Center stepped in; according to Wikipedia, “at that time India, Pakistan, Yemen and 17 countries in Africa were endemic for this disease and reported a total of 3.5 million cases per year.”
Interestingly, the solution to the problem isn’t a medicine: it’s a simple change of behavior and education. Merely filtering drinking water through cloth will rid the water of the worms. But as Hopkins says, working with the local leaders and respecting and understanding village traditions and customs is crucial. Which is why he credits his experience of segregation and prejudice in the South as a young man: it’s given him the sensitivity to work with others.
An example might be the obstacle that was preventing the Sudanese civil war; again, here’s Wikipedia:
One of the most significant challenges facing Guinea worm eradication has been the civil war in southern Sudan, which was largely inaccessible to health workers due to violence.[6][56] To address some of the humanitarian needs in southern Sudan, in 1995, the longest ceasefire in the history of the war was achieved through negotiations by Jimmy Carter.[6][56] Commonly called the "Guinea worm cease-fire," both warring parties agreed to halt hostilities for nearly six months to allow public health officials to begin Guinea worm eradication programming, among other interventions.
And guess what? It seems to be working, and we are down to less than 600 infections a year. In 1986, the number was 3.5 million. So there is every chance that Carter, currently age 89, will see the eradication of the guinea worm before he dies.
Well, Gentle Reader, it’s still Monday but…
…feeling better?


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