this is a horrible beast that has this life cycle where asks a cause excruciating pain that's diabolical i'm a curator in the division of invertebrates here at the american museum of natural history in new york city guinea worm is one of those parasites that fascinated me is a graduate student or never seen it alive i've never seen it in the wild and it's been with humanity for thousands of years. and there are some very interesting questions that need to be answered why is this need a really long parasite painless for up to a year living inside somebody's leg or arm or other tissue and then only when it needs to only when the parasite needs to finish the cycle and get back back into the water and release its lottery only then is it create this excruciating blisters . in one thousand nine hundred eighty six when little was known about anyone even

in countries where it was president the disease was brought to the attention of former us president jimmy carter. this was a terrible vacuum in the health care for literally hundreds of millions of people so we decided that we would take it on as a project not knowing the extent of it not knowing where it was not knowing. how to address the problem. when his philanthropic organization set out to measure the extent of the disease it found three and a half million cases occurring every year amongst the world's most remote and neglected people guinea worm was found in pakistan india and yemen but it was in a belt across sub-saharan africa that had had the greatest impact.

because guinea when is water born having safe drinking water is essential to eradicating it. the process of getting what the flu really will behold is a long process it is possible but it is a long process the most difficult but we can do something much easier and we can protect ourself a good one. and the thirst step to providing protection is to let people see for themselves what swims in the water they drink. and numerous and they have the typical dickie movement as a pseudo seems to be all you really good on goes on a lot of them look at them i'm not there or not you know that idea because he's refusing to do this with his reviews because all those what have lee's so they're hard at it people are doing fisted what i didn't did i did drink the whole thing is

a disorder and you'll go look at me and what i need to know when you're. good and soul forms are very different but i might be. there in your room on my way out with this or whatever if you think hollywood is in this because they have said this like that and so what he does what he's bringing them to good use of that is exactly what they were not if he didn't use for them and he just. with a membrane stretched across one and was the inspiration for the pipe. and idea that came from the to ignore mads of north africa would be news ing it for you. and in always in government made us nine million of these pipe filters were set to pipe filters into a saucer that. pipe filters were ideal for no magic people but longer lasting cloth was needed for filling buckets and jerry cans. president carter

approach to manufacture of parachutes for money what he got was more than what he had bargained for. they gave us six million square meters. very fine filter cloth and that was a basis on which we went into the villages and taught them but because it is a i told them if they would strain every drink of water through that filter cloth so that they could get rid of. filtering drinking water to remove guinea when carrying water fleas became a mainstay of the eradication program. over three decades guinea worm was eliminated village by village and country by country. nineteen

area and ghana which had recorded the highest number of cases in the world completed elimination by twenty eleven yeah yeah. yeah. it's quite possible that two years from now i won't be able to get one of these worms in fact with any luck that'll be the case so this is one of the last opportunities that anyone will add that i will certainly have in order to get one of these parasites live and to preserve it in a way that can be done out. but. the extinction of any species should give us some cause for concern but quite frankly when it comes to the scourge of humanity i'm all for it but i think we should study them while we get.

south sudan is the world's youngest country born out of decades of conflict with its northern neighbor. this was followed by intent all strife which still threatens the work of the guinea worm program. dr monk sit down has joined mccoy in south sudan it will take two days of hard driving under god from the capital to reach magos only two hundred and thirty kilometers away. my country is pretty vast you just saw five period in the city of under development and i didn't exist i was made so i do this with and one of the whitest regions there will.

be in class tried to make spirit difficult to reach malta idiots which happen to be the most open and i'm especially in the rainy season when access is stored difficult to address and that you have to step up your definitions. the reason we're going in the rainy season is because of the life cycle of water fleas come out and when there's water. the water is central to the life cycle. beyond the collapsed bridges and washed out roads nies models it is no. coincidence that anyone has made its last stand in this inaccessible and isolated part of the world.

again the communities that are the most neglected don't have access to any services like he had done no schools or not has granted it's not like most. didn't have a voice invent to advocate. and begin on program because it's the entry point for them to have a connection or a means of communicating with people make decisions i'm not really going on program look at us all as advocates for those coming to as a voice for these communities yeah i think. this is where it's going to end this is the place right here where it's going to and these are the people who are going to solve this problem once and for all just

like the nigerian saw that in nigeria and the gandhian to solve it in ghana and it takes the people in the community to do it and to see how we have a community of people coming together to interrupt a parasite life cycle and solve it without vaccines without drugs is just fascinating and really. uplifting to see humanity be able to accomplish this across such a huge geography and huge cultural diversity. when it's about the cause of the disease must be universal across endemic areas. people have lived with guinea worm for thousands of years and i understand it's good with a certain fatalism no damage but there's you know how to get anyone you know this you know how. i don't know about over the other side of a long long long ago not worth. that. room believe that it is associated whether i move the link transmission to any source of

water it is a very sketchy sort of link so the bottom line is to ensure that the communities that i want understand that link between fact the past and. the uncertain what songs you know what to look out are going up or down i mean we're. tara brand has spent six years under mccoy's leadership working for the guinea worm eradication program in some of south sudan's remotest regions does she know how does she know how she got to get me when i ask or does she know where to get a room comes from. me. that is going to india loudly that's. so i want to ask her how did they get a worm get and qusay. you don't know when you know so so she does not know how guinea worm gets into the water the

a teacher community this is a problem from water invariably they have always seen it year in year out time immemorial so sometimes the a teacher general. there is always something we're going to suffer you know can they show us how to use their filter could be a lot about now you know when did they get the end of june. it's through meticulous attention to every single detail that villagers are brought around to protecting themselves and each other from infection. she needs so first read this with a clean. not that we want to don don i like you know what i do the duty i think we distributed this one last week so. he's ok close. but so grand. it was.

in this endgame with guinea when confining people in a camp away from any water source is proving to be effective in mongrels. what happens here is that if somebody presents with a blister in their community they're brought here and then they're treated until the worm emerges and so we know that this particular strategy works if you just get people to number one filter the water they drink number two don't go back to water when they've got a warm coming out you've now broken the cycle in two different places and you don't have a circle you have to have circles it's not complete. we know that if there is here being treated we're not going to into water because we're providing water for washing and all of those things. we will keep them until they're worms in march maybe they go in and have multiple worms and so we have to keep them here until all

of this whims have emerged and have been reviewed and into all of their wounds hill . there are seven confirmed and fifteen suspect cases of guinea worm at the containment center. one confirmed case is nine year old. were arrived here by hisself more than two weeks ago. she's never been kept away from her family before. everyone is trying to make her feel comfortable but you just can't take away the pain that she has gone through and is going to continue to go through until those warm is removed. that alone is just heartbreaking. this unbelievable pain has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years if not a million years across an enormous landscape with children and adults and mothers and brothers and sons and it's all about pain is just

unbelievably tragic. and make them. has already taken a week's team and. it could take a month or even longer to remove it completely. each day as it is drawn centimeter by painful centimeter it is wrapped around a lot of cool as for millennia the worms will wound around a stick so i wasn't prepared for the fact that it really took this amount of time day after day painfully extracting a very long one from behind her knee. we had nurses in case containment center managers who are trained to treat all the cases and all of the suspects. we provide three meals a day. if the mother is a suspect or a case then she is allowed to go to the case content center with the children. we

have sheets and bed mats they try to make it nice for them so that they'll want to stay there. if. i. am. wrong and. cattle are critical to survival here but the season i need to find fresh grazing complicates the work of the program. we moved to get at the tops i mean i've been doing the transmission i didn't think someone there stocks. mccoy receives news that a cattle raid by one plant on another to the north of marcos has left one hundred

and twenty casualties getting over to got something to being a grave referred to by the fog that it is possible in opposing to their guns. i know when people are running for safety it is not an organized movement. that disrupts where the population goes and becomes so difficult for the clothing for a truck as people around flee for their lives. worry about the possibility of an outbreak cup an inner india where we don't know anything about it or where we don't have the capacity to respond to. a career reporting to the world oh i did hear one journalist documents life beyond the headlines. but certain stories can change us in the

easiest least use to it when you need. to change anyone a unique journey into what it means to be human the things we keep a witness documentary on al-jazeera. being located outside that western centric sphere of influence we're able to bring a different perspective to global that it's when you peel away all of the lists of co the military and the financial dollar going to see the people in those words and those policies are affecting see the emotion on their faces the situation they're living in that's when all the us can identify with the story. in the united states the religious right is on the mob we were always hunting for the guy who would take our script and read it their goal was to take control of one

of the parks and they perfect if we got that phone lines examines the trumpet ministration special relationship with the religious right what do you get out of it the presidency and what evangelical support means for the future of the country church of trump on al-jazeera. and all of the products of the headlines on the al-jazeera sources have told al jazeera that the turkish prosecutor's office is not happy following its meeting with saudi officials say the side has handed of evidence meanwhile the fiance of journalist jamal khashoggi says she holds saudi arabia responsible for her. you know on how you and the need for living is that i am deeply grateful for dishonored

geraghty of people in all over the world i am however disappointed in the actions of the leadership in many countries particularly in the u.s. president revealed the truth and he should justice be served he should not pave the way for a couple. let's not let money taint our conscience and compromise our values. the u.s. military is deploying more than five thousand troops including armed soldiers to the border with mexico as part of president trans campaign to stop the so-called caravan of central americans from crossing into the u.s. donald trump will visit pittsburgh on tuesday the same day that the first funerals will be held for the eleven people killed in a shooting in a synagogue there but members of the jewish community have written an open letter to trump thing he isn't welcome unless he fully denounces white nationalism the man accused in the shooting has been held without bail after his first court appearance the f.b.i. says and deceptive another suspicious package addressed to c.n.n.

in the u.s. it says it was similar to bombs that were mailed last week to prominent people all guys ations who are critical of president trump. no survivors have been found after a passenger plane crashed into the java sea just minutes after taking off from indonesia's capital on monday one hundred eighty nine people on board the lion air flight bound for. mexico's president elect is facing criticism for cancelling the building of a new airport for mexico city but under his manuel lopez obrador says he is respecting the result of a referendum by the mexican people last week which was rejected the partly build thirteen billion dollar airport six people have died after a heavy winds and flooding hit large parts of italy falling trees killed four people in different parts of the country and much of it is flooding after heavy rains those are the headlines on al-jazeera do stay with us lifelines the quest for

global health continues next thank you very much for watching. the the. the south sudan is on a countdown to ending guinea with a disease which causes excruciating pain as a metre long one emerges from an affected person. but a war and a population constantly on the move threaten to wipe out recent gains. there is a way fairly is not an option is because it actually takes the whole effort down to a square one. and is like climbing up a very steep hill and just at that point if you slip you you come down running to

the bottom and crashing down to the bottom that is not what anyone in this program wanted to see happening at this moment in the whole world we have one hundred twenty places and we know every person on earth that now has a guinea worm i don't want to die and i want to build i'm going at the height of the program in two thousand and nine it took a network of twenty six thousand technical advisors and volunteers to monitor every case in every the ledge and cattle camp across south sudan. tara brunt helps mccoy maintain and on me a fun in tears you're all one big team so even though they're from these communities that you're working and with them they are there for the same reason that you're there and you're all feeling the same pressure because you're trying to eradicate this disease. how are you. currently i'm originally corden or supervising other technical

advisers so i'm there to help make sure things are going well in their areas around . we've come with supplies so we will work with here today and go through some households with cases. for people who work voluntary. it has to be someone that the community trust someone that they know would do a good job. but i think a lot of applicants apply not realizing the amount of work that is actually involved so this year this is a copy of the contract. the volunteers are not receiving a salary they're just working for the benefit of the community. you know and i didn't just go and do a lot on his first year and one two years well so i says fully interrupted transmission on villagers we always try to missions we keep them stand ok this this we will fill with we try to build up the t.

was so that no matter where they go that they still are asking questions trying to see if people know anyone with guinea worm and if they see someone limping immediately we'll ask that person why are you limping do you have any swelling so you're constantly asking these questions so that you don't miss this something happening. a vigilant fun intel has spotted limping into marco's from a cattle camp and brought him to the containment center. no call no crying is reluctant to stay here even though one is emerging from his fault. he answers evasiveness when asked about the rivers and pond he has crossed on his journey. where oh i'm already. here i know i'm with what on earth that i'm going to.

the woman go would mean. at oakwood government. was. very wanted to because this is the first case from a village where we least expect cases to appear. secondly the case was not detected before there were me much our own i got on when a weary. when you were really a month ago or. a man a guy named there with all of the. what. you matter you know me you matter and i. obey. when i get out. there you know on want to be i don't know we want to you know we you can you. is. no com insists he must leave the camp to buy

a goat to make a sacrifice but if he contaminated water source he will put others in danger. his family are said to live in a village near where he was found mccoy needs to talk to them. we ordered because he has not been that cooperative to provide drugs information and we fear that it might contaminate the water source and that's why we need to drill down the investigation here that will enable us to make an informed guess where he probably got infected ok. sure. a lot of what the team does is detection work and i believe the last few areas where we're having a problem is due to the mobility of the people because you may find someone with guinea worm today and overnight he has left to go to

a cattle camp. what is the connection between. the two this is the kind of local and the family association now you know if these two ladies walk moderated by people these feelings and the. willow will get it. sometimes you really need to get due from original from different people to see the gaps and try to determine what makes sense. to me you know not even. after hours of discussion it tends to the women are not from the combs family at all in fact they don't even know who he is. so it's back to square one for the team but mccoy betrays no sign of frustration. one thing that i did have a direct influence on my life. is that i realised that working with this community. i didn't have

a reason to complain we're going to have nothing. and so it really helped me to be able to be content that we deliver on that house because. many many out there who doesn't have any. guinea worm is a disease of poverty that keeps people in poverty. more than fifty percent of the cases are men female and in these communities here women are really did great we are. they turned their gardens all their i need in one of them began immobilize you know this is going to lose that. short of the cultivation season and that will have to shear it like in the summer.

and then maybe the other thing that i need to know is whether according to him would rain starts early this year or last year in stocks much mccoy now has to identify every single pond where people with guinea when this year may have drunk contaminated water the year before it seems an impossible task but technical advisor james number has been painstakingly recording crucial data over the course of the well with you and me and now where looking at the game it seems like these villages here somehow have connection with that location where we had the object last year between march and i will be one of the only way to find out is to start walking. down a mile long underlining the beginning. so what the other people had going on last against funding the reality of what. that other sort is or what it's all that

they're using so i'd listen we know. it and. the people from. form various forms are using just cream the cases into tall order stricter to do people who are following their science look and know when to determine. what the sources that might be used on the plate and write those coming from the other side when every detail in the landscape can be read as a narrative. of what are called acts in this depression may not of people use it because it is along a path but this one is right and i want to bounce his understanding is these waterloo's strictly used those were coming up going by piecing together local information tries to home in on every possible contamination point excellent. what was this i want to be able to you know. i mean you are.

so when you drink it's filled with water so if this one feels so do you sometimes drink from it is no i wasn't going to leave gives me a by word on google about this depressions can be a real problem so it's good that you are picking up the possible sources of what transmission especially when they're filled up with water so you are doing a very good job because at least you are making sure that you don't limit your surveillance activities only divinity level. but. it's not just last year's ponds that are a problem it's the location of the recent contaminations that must be edge into the identify. when we're able to detect where the patient was when there were merged and then we go to that area and make sure everyone has their filters in that case the patient has entered the water with

daniel and because we don't want any surprises. for you. you know. one. because this. this. she had her comical filter. so it's good that she's been using it but there's a really large hole in it so basically all of the water in here could be contaminated so i've asked thirty is this filter which is which is good and what. if you could just take this one here so she doesn't have to touch more from the well. we try to emphasize every time before they use their filter to hold it up to the sun and check for holes but this hole is really big and any time we find cultures where we destroy them and we don't we don't give

them back. and so. yeah. i don't know you know. i don't know what i look. at all you have to do is change human behavior now that doesn't make it easy but it makes it definable and then it's just a matter of creating the will and finding the right culturally sensitive ways to encourage people to change behavior about filtering water about what to do if you have the symptoms for example not go into the water and to bring a lot of peer pressure really to bear because it is as we know peer pressure can be a powerful thing and using peer pressure is really community pressure.