cobbold used the name dracunculus medinensis, which was enshrined as the official name by the international commission on zoological nomenclature in 1915. despite longstanding knowledge that the worm was associated with water, the lifecycle of d. medinensis was the topic of protracted debate. alexei pavlovich fedchenko filled a major gap with his 1870 publication describing that d. medinensis larvae can infect and develop inside cyclops crustaceans. the next step was shown by robert thomson leiper, who described in a 1907 paper that monkeys fed d. medinensis-infected cyclops developed mature guinea worms, while monkeys directly fed d. medinensis larvae did not. in the 19th and 20th centuries, dracunculiasis was widespread across nearly all of africa and south asia, though we lack exact case counts from the pre-eradication era. in a 1947 article in the journal of parasitology, norman r. stoll used rough estimates of populations in endemic areas to suggest that there could be as many as 48 million cases of dracunculiasis per year. in 1976, the who estimated the global burden at 10 million cases per year. ten years later, as the eradication effort was beginning, the who estimated 3.5 million cases per year worldwide. eradication main article: eradication of dracunculiasis global dracunculiasis cases according to the world health organization, 1989–2021, displayed on a logarithmic scale. the campaign to eradicate dracunculiasis began at the urging of the cdc in 1980. following smallpox eradication (last case in 1977; eradication certified in 1981), dracunculiasis was considered an achievable eradication target since it was relatively uncommon and preventable with only behavioral changes. in 1981, the steering committee for the united nations international drinking water supply and sanitation decade (a program to improve global drinking water during the decade from 1981 to 1990) adopted the goal of eradicating dracunculiasis as part of their efforts. the following june, an international meeting termed "workshop on opportunities for control of dracunculiasis" concluded that dracunculiasis could be eradicated through public education, drinking water improvement, and larvicide treatments. in response, india began its national eradication program in 1983. in 1986, the 39th world health assembly issued a statement endorsing dracunculiasis eradication and calling on member states to craft eradication plans. the same year, the carter center began collaborating with the government of pakistan to initiate its national program, which then launched in 1988. by 1996, national eradication programs had been launched in every country with endemic dracunculiasis: ghana and nigeria in 1989; cameroon in 1991; togo, burkina faso, senegal, and uganda in 1992; benin, mauritania, niger, mali, and côte d'ivoire in 1993; sudan, kenya, chad, and ethiopia in 1994; yemen and the central african republic in 1995. each national eradication program had three phases. the first phase consisted of a nationwide search to identify the extent of dracunculiasis transmission and develop national and regional plans of action. the second phase involved the training and distribution of staff and volunteers to provide public education village-by-village, surveil for cases, and deliver water filters. this continued and evolved as needed until the national burden of disease was very low. then in a third phase, programs intensified surveillance efforts with the goal of identifying each case within 24 hours of the worm emerging and preventing the person from contaminating drinking water supplies. most national programs offered voluntary in-patient centers, where those affected could stay and receive food and care until their worms were removed. in may 1991, the 44th world health assembly called for an international certification system to verify dracunculiasis eradication country-by-country. to this end, in 1995 the who established the international commission for the certification of dracunculiasis eradication (iccde). once a country reports zero cases of dracunculiasis for a calendar year, the iccde considers that country to have interrupted guinea worm transmission, and is then in the "precertification phase". if the country repeats this feat with zero cases in each of the next three calendar years, the iccde sends a team to the country to assess the country's disease surveillance systems and to verify the country's reports. the iccde can then formally recommend the who director-general certify a country as free of dracunculiasis. since the initiation of the global eradication program, the iccde has certified 15 of the original endemic countries as having eradicated dracunculiasis: pakistan in 1997; india in 2000; senegal and yemen in 2004; the central african republic and cameroon in 2007; benin, mauritania, and uganda in 2009; burkina faso and togo in 2011; côte d'ivoire, niger, and nigeria in 2013; and ghana in 2015. datesouth sudanmaliethiopiachadangolacameroontotal 2011 1,028 12 8 10 0 0 1,058 2012 521 7 4 10 0 0 542 2013 113 11 7 14 0 0 148 2014 70 40 3 13 0 0 126 2015 5 5 3 9 0 0 22 2016 6 0 3 16 0 0 25 2017 0 0 15 15 0 0 30 2018 10 0 0 17 1 0 28 2019 4 0 0 48 1 1 54 2020 1 1 11 12 1 1 27 2021 4 2 1 8 0 0 15 2022 5 0 1 6 0 0 13 2023 (through february) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 other animals in addition to humans, d. medinensis can infect dogs. infections of domestic dogs have been particularly common in chad, where they helped reignite dracunculiasis transmission in 2010. dogs are thought to be infected by eating a paratenic host, likely a fish or amphibian. as with humans, prevention efforts have focused on preventing infection by encouraging people in affected areas to bury fish entrails as well as to identify and tie up dogs with emerging worms so that they cannot access drinking water sources until after the worms have emerged. domestic ferrets can be infected with d. medinensis in laboratory settings, and have been used as an animal disease model for human dracunculiasis. different dracunculus species can infect snakes, turtles, and other mammals. animal infections are most widespread in snakes, with nine different species of dracunculus described in snakes in the united states, brazil, india, vietnam, australia, papua new guinea, benin, madagascar, and italy. the only other reptile affected is the snapping turtle with infected common snapping turtles described in several u.s. states, and a single infected south american snapping turtle described in costa rica. infections of other mammals are limited to the americas. raccoons in the u.s. and canada are most widely impacted, particularly by d. insignis; however, dracunculus worms have also been reported in american skunks, coyotes, foxes, opossums, domestic dogs, domestic cats, and (rarely) muskrats and beavers. notes this theory, put forth by friedrich küchenmeister in 1855, would make the book of numbers passage "then the lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of israel died" among the oldest records of dracunculiasis. the contention that this passage refers to dracunculiasis is oft-repeated, though not universally held. fedchenko suggested that this discovery was serendipitous based on his observations of many waterborne animals. however, rudolf leuckart claimed that he had advised fedchenko to investigate cyclops due to the similarity between d. medinensis and the fish parasite cucullanus elegans, the life cycle of which leuckart had described in 1865. imported from chad. including 3 exported to sudan. including 1 imported from chad in central african republic.