1. The Guinea Worm, President Carter and Me: A Journey Through Health Diplomacy
- Author:
- Lisa Rotondo
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- In September 2001, just days before 9/11, I arrived in Pissila, Burkina Faso for my Peace Corps assignment. I was eager to get to work helping my new home community do surveillance for a neglected tropical disease (NTD) called dracunculiasis, or Guinea worm disease. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Burkina Faso, I biked from village to village, asking community members if they were aware of anyone with Guinea worm disease, an infection that has impacted both humans and animals since ancient times. Thanks, in part, to the work of volunteers before me, I never actually saw a person with Guinea worm disease during my two years as a volunteer. Burkina Faso was on the brink of eliminating the disease, and I remember thinking that the children in my community would never know the word for Guinea worm in their language, Moorè; it would not be in their vocabulary because they would never have to worry about it. I’ve reflected on that more than once during my career in public health. Knowing that we are truly making diseases history has been the drive underlying my efforts for the last two decades.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Health, Memoir, and Public Health
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States of America, and Burkina Faso