How does Guinea worm disease manifest itself?
For the first nine-to-12 months, you don’t know you have Guinea worm disease. The [first] symptoms are malaria-like: fever, nausea, chills, and absolutely no energy. [A few weeks later], the worm forms a large burning skin ulcer, causing intense, localized pain. As soon as the ulcer forms, you can barely move that part of the body. In the middle of the ulcer, a blister forms where the worm emerges. It takes at least 10 days for the worm to exit. It’s agonizing. There is no way you can walk if it’s on the leg or the foot. You can have multiple worms coming out different places. You can wrap a stick around the worm and pull the worm every other day until it resists, pull it and coax it out. But if a worm pulls back inside the body, it can calcify, cut off blood supply, and cause paralysis. Is there a treatment for Guinea worm disease? There is no treatment.
