Communicating the Invisible: Lessons from Guinea Worm Eradication

29 March 2026 | Written by CIPR International committee member Omotola Akindipe.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) like Guinea worm rarely make headlines, but for the communities affected, they are anything but invisible. Affecting more than 1.7 billion people globally, NTDs are tied to poverty, geography, and access to basic services, making communication both essential and challenging.

Take Angola. In recent years, the country has moved from detecting unexpected cases of Guinea Worm in 2018 to reporting zero human cases since 2020, which is an extraordinary public health achievement. Yet the story is not over. The persistence of infections in animals, particularly dogs, continues to complicate eradication efforts, highlighting how the “last mile” of disease elimination is often the hardest.

This is where communication becomes critical and also difficult.

Unlike high-profile diseases, Guinea worm has no vaccine; prevention relies largely on behaviour change, such as filtering drinking water and avoiding contaminated sources. Communicating these practices in remote and low-resource settings requires community engagement, cultural understanding, and sustained presence.

Angola’s approach offers important lessons. Working with partners like the World Health Organization and The Carter Center, the country has invested in community-based surveillance, training local volunteers to detect and report cases early. This is a communications strategy. When messages are delivered by trusted community members, they are more likely to be understood, accepted, and acted upon.

Globally, similar efforts are underway in countries such as Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, and Sudan. Across these contexts, the same challenge emerges, how do you communicate urgency about a disease that is becoming increasingly rare?

For communications professionals, this is interesting because as human cases decline, down from 3.5 million in the 1980s to just 10 globally in 2025, the risk of complacency increases. The story becomes harder to tell, funding becomes harder to secure, and attention shifts elsewhere.

So, what works?

First, humanise the narrative. Every case is a person, a family, a community, stories that speak more than statistics. Second, localise the message. Behaviour change is context-specific, and communication must reflect local realities. Third, build trust through partnerships. Governments, NGOs, and communities must speak with one voice. Finally, communicate progress without losing urgency, celebrating milestones while reinforcing that “zero” is the only acceptable endpoint.

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About the writer:

Omotola Akindipe is an external relations professional in the UN system, Omotola has more than 10 years of experience in interagency coordination and communications. Currently, he leads the External Relations team for WHO in Angola with a focus on partnerships, reporting, donor relations and communications. Omotola is trilingual (English, Portuguese, and German) and has vast international experience having worked in several European and African countries.