Reference no: EM132412775

Since his time as the President, Jimmy Carter has devoted himself to a variety of humanitarian causes. One that has been very important to him is the elimination of Guinea worm, which would represent only the second human pathogen that has been eliminated from the Earth. This parasite is spread from one human to another due to contaminated water. The worm lives inside a human and when it is mature, it migrates to the skin, causing a painful, burning blister. When the infected person puts the blister into water to cool, the worm emerges from the skin, releasing larvae into the water that are then ingested by another person, allowing the life cycle to continue. Since the parasite depended on humans for every factor of its life cycle, it seemed that we could eliminate Guinea worms if we were to stop the cycle of infections. To achieve this, The Carter Center has focused on education programs to teach people how to avoid infections and prevent their spread as well as helping fund initiatives to provide clean water. These initiatives have been very successful as infections have dropped from over 3 million cases a year, to only seven in 2016. In fact, President Carter hoped that "the last Guinea worm will die before I do". Unfortunately, in 2013, Guinea worm infections turned up in a new species - dogs were turning up with dozens of worms inside them. Propose a hypothesis to explain how this might have occurred, addressing it from an evolutionary standpoint. What implications does this have for the evolution of Guinea worm and for our efforts to eradicate it and why is that the case?