Is Guinea worm disease near end? said at a news conference during the global Guinea Worm Eradication Program’s 22nd annual review at the Carter Center. “Today, the dream has come true.” Guinea worm disease is a painfully debilitating parasitic condition

In 2017, just two nations reported 30 cases in all, Carter Center says.

Jimmy Carter is getting closer to finally having Guinea worm disease’s number.

The 93-year-old former president has said he hopes to outlive the last guinea worm. On Wednesday, it was announced at the Carter Center that South Sudan has stopped transmission of Guinea worm disease throughout that African nation.

“This is a great achievement for our young nation,” South Sudan health minister Dr. Riek Gai Kok

ter began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease.

Carter wasn’t at Wednesday’s event, choosing instead to be in Plains with his wife, Rosalynn, 90, who reportedly is recovering well from recent intestinal surgery. But the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s absence didn’t lessen the significance of the news, which he hailed in a statement.

“The people and government of South Sudan have achieved a great milestone in the worldwide effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease,” Carter said. “We are within reach of a world free of Guinea worm disease.”

If so, that would make it only the second human disease in history, after smallpox, to be eliminated. And what South Sudan has achieved thus far — Guinea worm-free areas must undergo a three-year surveillance process before being certified by the World Health Organization — is that much more remarkable given the “extraordinary handicaps” the program there started with, said Dr. Donald R. Hopkins, the Carter Center’s special adviser for Guinea worm eradication.

When the Sudan Guinea Worm Eradication Program began in 1995, the country was riven by a prolonged civil war. Because that handicapped access by health workers and others to many areas where the disease was endemic, Carter that year brokered the “Guinea Worm Cease-Fire.” Fighting was suspended for almost six months, during which time the program “was able to access more than 2,000 Guinea worm-endemic villages,” the Carter Center says.

Kok on Wednesday suggested that stopping Guinea worm in its tracks goes beyond improving lives in his own country.

“We feel we have contributed to the common cause of humanity today,” South Sudan’s health minister said, “that we have played our part in realizing that dream of ridding the world of that disease called Guinea worm.”