As world leaders mourn the death of former President Jimmy Carter and comment on his political legacy, doctors remember his efforts to prevent disease and his legacy in promoting global public health.
The 39th president spent five decades working to eradicate a parasitic disease, helped organize a major drug donation program and made progress in combating America’s mental health crisis.
Dr. Julie Jacobson, currently managing partner of the nonprofit Bridges to Development, helped fund the Carter Center’s work in the Americas, Nigeria and Ethiopia, while working on the bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for over a decade.
“He had a huge influence, I think especially for diseases that most people in the world don’t even realize exist,” Jacobson told ABC News of Jimmy Carter’s work. “He was a true advocate for neglected tropical diseases, which are among the most common infections among people who live with the fewest resources. He discovered these diseases and then really wanted to do something to fight them. He used his voice, his influence, his passion, to keep moving forward where others really weren’t interested.”
Virtual eradication of dracunculiasis
After his defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election, Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982, a nonprofit organization that “seeks to prevent and resolve conflict, strengthen freedom and democracy, and to improve health,” according to the Center’s website.
Among the organization’s many efforts, the Carter Center helped launch a successful international campaign to eradicate dracunculiasis, also known as Guinea worm disease, a parasitic infection caused by drinking contaminated drinking water .
Water from ponds or other stagnant bodies of water may contain tiny crustaceans commonly called water fleas, which in turn may be infected with guinea worm larvae, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Former President Jimmy Carter during an interview with Reuters in Cairo, Egypt, January 12, 2012.
Amr Dalsh/Reuters
About a year after infecting a human host, the Guinea worm creates a blister on the skin and comes out, which can cause burning, fever and swelling, according to the CDC and the World Health Organization.
“No one else wanted to do it,” Jimmy Carter told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during a 2015 interview on “Good Morning America”. “So, I decided to give it a go.”
In 1986, dracunculiasis affected 3.5 million people each year in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. The incidence of the disease has since been reduced by 99.99%, to just 14 “provisional” human cases in 2023, according to the Carter Center.
Jacobson said the success is all the more remarkable given that there is no vaccine available to prevent Guinea worm disease or any medication to treat it. According to Jacobson, tracking guinea worm disease involves following possible cases for a year to determine if they are infected, checking to see if infected humans have nearby infected water sources, and monitoring the community as a whole. .
“To think you could eradicate a disease without any tools is really just a crazy idea, but he did it with perseverance and by working with grassroots people in communities and building teams to go work with the people in these communities and empower the communities,” Jacobson said.
The Carter Center says that if efforts are successful, dracunculiasis could become the second human disease in history to be completely eradicated, after smallpox, and the first to be eliminated without the use of a vaccine or a medicine.
Carter told ABC News in the 2015 interview that his goal was to completely eradicate the disease: “I think it’s going to be a great achievement, not for me, but for the people who have been affected and for that the whole world witnesses diseases. like that eradicated.
Mass distribution of drugs against river blindness
The Carter Center also works to combat other preventable diseases, including the parasitic infections schistosomiasis and lymphatic filariasis – more commonly known as snail fever and elephantiasis, respectively – as well as trachoma, which is one of the leading causes of preventable blindness worldwide. It is also working with the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic to eliminate lymphatic filariasis and malaria from the island of Hispaniola, which the two countries share and which is “the last reservoir of both diseases in the Caribbean.” according to the Carter Center.
Carter and his organization also played a role in organizing a major drug donation program to help eliminate onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, which is transmitted to humans through bites repeated infections of infected blackflies. According to the CDC.
Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. had conducted field studies in Africa that showed the drug ivermectin to be effective in treating river blindness in humans. The Carter Center in partnership with Merck mass distribute ivermectin, brand Mectizan, “as much as necessary, as long as necessary” in Africa and Latin America. To date, the Carter Center has helped distribute more than 500 million Mectizan treatments, according to Merck.
Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter receives a hug from his wife, Rosalynn, after the third presidential debate on October 22, 1976, in Williamsburg, Virginia.
P.A.
In 1995, Carter negotiated a two-month ceasefire in Sudan to allow health workers to safely help eradicate Guinea worm disease, prevent river blindness, and vaccinate children against it. polio.
“When we know about solutions, it is ethical to make sure they are available to the people who need them most,” said Dr. Usha Ramakrishnan, chair of the Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health from Emory University, to ABC News. . “And that’s where we were with river blindness. There was a treatment, but improving access to medicines, making them affordable, reaching the people they need was very much in line with the work what the Carter Center was doing.”
Addressing mental health
Carter was also determined to combat mental health issues. During his presidency, he created the Presidential Commission on Mental Healthwhich recommended a national plan to care for people with chronic mental illness.
Although it was never adopted as policy by the Reagan administration, the plan’s recommended strategies were adopted by some mental health advocacy groups to “make progress in the 1980s”, according to a study.
Carter also signed the law Mental Health Systems Act of 1980which funded community mental health centers.
After his presidency, Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter continued to work to improve access to mental health.
Ramakrishnan said the Carters’ work has helped reduce some of the stigma associated with mental health.
“There’s still a lot of stigma, but they’ve really brought it out into the conversation and incorporated mental health as an important aspect of health and wellness,” Ramakrishnan said. “There are still many challenges ahead, and many good people they have mentored and trained carry this role.”