Only 10 human cases of Guinea worm disease were reported worldwide in 2025, the lowest number ever recorded and a 33 percent drop from the 15 cases reported the year before, The Carter Center announced.
When The Carter Center took on the global eradication campaign in 1986, an estimated 3.5 million people were infected each year across 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Four decades of community-based work, clean water access, cloth water filters, and hundreds of thousands of trained local volunteers, has cut cases by more than 99.99 percent, averting more than 100 million infections along the way.
The 2025 cases were split among just three countries: four in Chad, four in Ethiopia, and two in South Sudan. Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Mali all reported zero human cases for a second consecutive year, and 200 of 206 countries worldwide are now certified free of the disease by the World Health Organization.
If it reaches zero, Guinea worm would become only the second human disease ever eradicated, after smallpox, and the first eliminated without a vaccine or medicine.
"President Carter always said he wanted to outlast the last Guinea worm. While he didn't quite get his wish, he and Mrs. Carter would be proud to know there were only 10 human cases reported in 2025," said Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander. "And they would remind us that the work continues until we reach zero."
"We're energized by this year's progress, but zero is the only acceptable number, and that's why our commitment to finishing this job is unwavering," said Adam Weiss, director of the Carter Center's Guinea Worm Eradication Program.
