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Outlook: 'I'll Defeat Guinea Worm, Then Retire'

Dr. Donald R Hopkins

28/08/2013

'I'll Defeat Guinea Worm, Then Retire'

BBC World Service - Outlook, 'I'll Defeat Guinea Worm, Then Retire'

US doctor Donald Hopkins has made it his life's work to eradicate Guinea worm from Africa

US doctor Donald Hopkins has set himself the goal of eradicating Guinea worm from Africa  and he's very nearly there.  Jo Fidgen hears his inspiring story.

Donald Hopkins is an American doctor who has done more than many to rid the world of Guinea worm.  It's a horrifying disease spread through drinking water and the worm grows within its host until a metre long.  Then it bursts out of the body causing great pain and incapacitating its host.  Dr Hopkins began his career at Morehouse College, the all-black college in Atlanta where Martin Luther King also studied some years earlier.  He has set himself the goal of eradicating Guinea worm from Africa  and he's very nearly there.  Jo Fidgen hears his inspiring story.

Roger Swainston is an artist with an unconventional studio - a coral reef off the western coast of Australia. He has contrived his own method of painting among the fishes and sharks, and describes it as "meditative".

The population of Antartica dwindles from thousands in the summer to a few hundred.  Anthony Powell is a communications technician who has made a film about winter in this inhospitable, and beautiful, environment.

In Haiti electricity is unreliable, and many of the population is illiterate, so radio is crucial to people's lives.  Photographer Paolo Woods went to Les Cayes which has more than 30 radio stations to find out about the stars of radio, including a broadcasting nun.

(Image:  Dr Donald R Hopkins,   Image copyright: The Carter Center/E Staub)

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