Our World
in Data
Oxford Martin School logoUniversity of Oxford logoGlobal Change Data Lab logo
Data

Countries where guinea worm disease is endemic

WHO

What you should know about this indicator

  • Countries can be classified as "endemic", "pre-certification", "pending surveillance" or "certified free of guinea worm disease".
  • A country is classified as endemic if the disease is consistently present in the country. As of 2025, there are 5 countries in which Dracunculiasis is endemic, these are Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and South Sudan.
  • Countries labeled pre-certification are endemic countries that have reported zero indigenous cases in the calendar year. As of 2025, Sudan is the only country with pre-certification status.
  • Countries labeled pending surveillance have not had sufficient testing to determine their status or the number of cases in the country.
  • Countries labeled certified free of guinea worm disease have reported zero indigenous cases through active surveillance for at least three consecutive years. 200 countries, areas and territories have been certified free of guinea worm disease by the WHO. The latest are Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which were certified in 2018 and 2022 respectively.
  • In 2025 the WHO concluded that Cameroon (based on human and animal case counts) should be reclassified as endemic. As Cameroon was certified disease-free in 2007, this change is not applied retroactively to the data, but it is reflected in the certification status for Cameroon in 2025 and beyond.

How is this data described by its producer - WHO?

Elimination of dracunculiasis is the confirmed absence of the emergence of adult female worms (the interruption of transmission of Dracunculus medinensis) in humans and animals for three consecutive years or longer from a country with such a low risk of reintroduction of the parasite that preventive measures could be reduced to a strict minimum.

Countries where guinea worm disease is endemic
WHO
The current and historical values for the status of as certified by the WHO. To be certified as free of guinea worm disease, a country must have reported zero indigenous cases through active surveillance for at least three consecutive years.
Source
World Health Organization (2026) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 17, 2026
Next expected update
March 2027
Date range
1996–2025

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

World Health Organization – Certification status of dracunculiasis eradication

Retrieved on
June 17, 2024
Retrieved from
https://web.archive.org/web/20211024081702/https://apps.who.int/dracunculiasis/dradata/html/report_Countries_t0.html
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization. Certification status of dracunculiasis eradication, 2017
Retrieved on
June 17, 2024
Retrieved from
https://web.archive.org/web/20211024081702/https://apps.who.int/dracunculiasis/dradata/html/report_Countries_t0.html
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
World Health Organization. Certification status of dracunculiasis eradication, 2017

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline
Notes on our processing step for this indicator

The current and historical values for the status of Guinea worm disease (Dracunculiasis) as certified by the WHO. To be certified as free of guinea worm disease, a country must have reported zero indigenous cases through active surveillance for at least three consecutive years.

Data regarding certification status is available at the WHO: https://web.archive.org/web/20211024081702/https://apps.who.int/dracunculiasis/dradata/html/report_Countries_t0.html

We have added the recent changes to Guinea worm disease certification:

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Countries where guinea worm disease is endemic”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2016) - “Global Health”. Data adapted from World Health Organization. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260603-111255/grapher/progress-towards-guinea-worm-disease-eradication.html [online resource] (archived on June 3, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

World Health Organization (2026) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Health Organization (2026) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Countries where guinea worm disease is endemic – WHO” [dataset]. World Health Organization, “Certification status of dracunculiasis eradication” [original data]. Retrieved June 3, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260603-111255/grapher/progress-towards-guinea-worm-disease-eradication.html (archived on June 3, 2026).

Download

Quick download

You can download the visualization as an image or download the chart data.