By Stephanie Nolen

“Jimmy Carter’s five decades of leadership in global health brought a hideous disease to the brink of elimination, helped deliver basic health and sanitation to millions of people and set a new standard for how aid agencies should engage with the countries they assist.
It was quiet work and drew relatively little attention because it was focused on afflictions that plague the poorest people in the most marginalized places, but it had enormous impact.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Carter decided to focus on neglected tropical diseases, which draw little investment in research or treatment because they infect the poorest people in the poorest countries.
The Carters learned about Guinea worm, an excruciating and disabling parasitic infection in which a three-foot-long worm slowly burrows out through the skin of the person it has infected, and for which there is no treatment other than painstakingly drawing out the worm over days or weeks. With Dr. Foege and his team, the Carters set the goal of eliminating the disease.
Mr. Carter did not, as he often vowed to do, live long enough to see eradication. But in 1986, when they began the campaign, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases in at least 21 countries. This year, as of early December, the Carter Center reported a provisional total of just 11 cases.”

to read the full article go to

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/health/jimmy-carter-global-health.html

lth.html

“How Jimmy Carter’s legacy as a public health visionary benefits the world”

by Robert W. Amler

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5059833-jimmy-carter-public-health-impact

America Still Needs Jimmy Carter’s Health Care Agenda—Even If It Flopped

By Guian McKee / Made by History

https://time.com/6338230/jimmy-carter-dies-health-care/