Dear John,
Guinea worm disease has tormented humanity for at least 3,000 years, infecting millions with worms that painfully exit through lesions in the skin. Can you imagine growing up knowing you faced this kind of ordeal? For the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, this always has been the case. This terrible disease stopped them from going about daily life, tending to crops, or caring for their children.
But we are now on the brink of making Guinea worm only the second human disease, after smallpox, ever eradicated from our planet and the first without a vaccine!
You did this. When The Carter Center began leading the Guinea worm campaign in 1986 — tracking down every case and contaminated water source and teaching people how to avoid infection — more than 3.5 million people a year were infected. As of September 2019, only 48 cases remain!
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THIS IS HOW YOU’RE HELPING FINISH OFF GUINEA WORM
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| Your generosity today means Carter Center-trained health care volunteers will continue to have the resources to travel to even the most remote villages, teaching how Guinea worm spreads, how to keep away from contaminated water sources, and how to use pipe filters to avoid infection. And it means our staff and community volunteers can locate and track every last case and care for sufferers until Guinea worm is no more. |
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This alone would be cause for celebration. But your generosity is doing even more. That’s because the same type of volunteer networks you help support across thousands of villages in Africa to end Guinea worm also successfully fight other neglected tropical diseases. These ailments plague our brothers and sisters who have the least resources in the world to overcome them, and the debilitating symptoms can keep them in poverty and ostracized by their communities.
No one deserves to suffer like this. So, thank you for helping. Please be as generous as you can to help end Guinea worm disease forever and eliminate many other diseases that plague the poorest of the poor.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Carter
Co-Founder and Trustee
The Carter Center
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In FY2017-18, 92% of our spending went directly to our peace and health programs. |
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