An International Health Organization Committed to Guinea Worm Disease Eradication and Disease Control and Prevention

The Carter Center Health Programs

"We believe good health is a basic human right, especially among poor people afflicted with disease who are isolated, forgotten, ignored, and often without hope."
— Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter

Global health connects us all. It lies in the hands of a small Ethiopian child learning to wash her face to prevent the spread of infectious disease. It finds form in the work of Brazilian health volunteers bringing vital medicine and health education to people living deep in the rainforest. It is expressed when someone with mental illness can find new hope through full access to health care. From these seemingly simple beginnings, global health broadens its reach to affect the prosperity and stability of whole nations—whether it is stopping a rapid outbreak of illness, preventing famine, or eliminating socially and economically devastating diseases.

At The Carter Center, we work to build hope in some of the world's most impoverished and forgotten communities. Our health programs prevent the suffering of millions of people around the world from diseases often ignored by others. Many of the most severe afflictions are entirely preventable. Yet people living in developing nations die or are disabled because they do not have access to the services they need to treat their illness or avoid infection entirely. Every day our experts show people how they can take steps to transform their own lives.

As Guinea worm is poised to become the next disease after smallpox to be wiped off the face of the Earth, eradication efforts are rejuvenating communities throughout Africa, enabling children to return to school and farmers to their fields. The Center spearheads the international campaign, which has reduced cases by more than 99.7 percent since 1986.
Improved sanitation and hygiene are critical to public health and overall development. As part of the Center's trachoma control efforts, more than 300,000 latrines were built in Ethiopia since 2004, transforming life in those communities.
We have assisted in the delivery of more than 100 million treatments in 11 river blindness-endemic countries in Latin America and Africa since 1996. The Carter Center is leading the drive to eradicate this debilitating disease where it occurs in the Americas by the end of the decade.
Building on village-based drug distribution systems now in place in Nigeria to prevent river blindness, the Center also is reducing incidences of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis, enhancing children's abilities to grow, develop, and learn.
The same health care delivery infrastructure in Nigeria also is helping to prevent and treat lymphatic filariasis, a disfiguring and shame-ridden disease afflicting the poorest of the poor.
In some countries, the biggest factor to poor health is lack of access to trained health personnel. By strengthening the training of Ethiopia public health staff, 90 percent of the people in this large African country, who live in less developed rural areas, have greater access to basic disease prevention and health care services.
8-10 million small-scale farmers in 15 sub-Saharan African countries have learned improved agricultural techniques to double or triple grain production, growing more food for their families and boosting local economies.
By distributing 3 million long-lasting insecticidal bed nets in Ethiopia, the Center's Malaria Control Program aims to protect 18 million people at risk for contracting the deadly mosquito-borne infection.
Because mental and physical health are interconnected, the Center has led international efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses and to achieve greater equity for mental health in the health care system.
The Center is the base for the International Task Force for Disease Eradication. The group has reviewed more than 100 infectious diseases and identified six as potentially eradicable.

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