http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/health/a-dogs-life-in-chad-filling-up-on-fish-guts-and-on-guinea-worms.html 2014-09-30 00:33:38 A Dog’s Life in Chad: Filling Up on Fish Guts and on Guinea Worms A surprise has turned up in the fight against Guinea worm: In Chad, more dogs have it than people do — and fish guts are apparently to blame. === A surprise has turned up in the fight against Guinea worm: In Chad, more dogs have it than people do — and fish guts are apparently to blame. Thus far this year, according to the There were only 148 known human cases of the disease, also called dracunculiasis, in the world last year. Only In the past, a few scattered cases have been reported in dogs and donkeys, said Dr. Donald R. Hopkins, the Carter Center’s director of health, but this outbreak — which was described last January in It is limited to 35 villages on the banks of the Chari River, which shrivels in the dry season, leaving pools in which fish are trapped. Villagers wade in and grab thousands to cook; dogs eat the raw entrails that are thrown on the ground. Worm larvae live inside tiny waterborne crustaceans. People are normally infected by drinking infested pond water; the Carter Center gives out filters and treats ponds with a mild pesticide that kills the crustaceans. Volunteers from the center are urging villagers to bury or burn the guts and tie up their dogs when cleaning fish, Dr. Hopkins said. History suggests that a new disease reservoir is unlikely. “When we’ve stopped it in humans before,” he said, “all cases in animals go away.”