hookworm

Why It Can Be Harder To Fight Hookworms In Alabama Than In Argentina

1:59pm January 22, 2021

by Susan Brink

The wriggling parasites are a scourge around the world. And in some ways, other countries are better at fighting them than the U.S. But a new effort in the rural South shows promise.

Catherine Coleman Flowers is the founding director of the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise.

'Waste' Activist Digs Into The Sanitation Crisis Affecting The Rural Poor

2:19pm November 23, 2020

by Dave Davies

In 2017, a study reported one in three people in one rural Alabama county had been exposed to hookworm. Catherine Coleman Flowers says the study reveals big gaps in sanitation in rural America.

Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, is leading a mission to investigate poverty in the U.S.

The U.N. Looks At Extreme Poverty In The U.S., From Alabama To California

3:59pm December 12, 2017

One sign of the poverty they're investigating — the recent (and surprising) reemergence of hookworm in Lowndes County, Ala.

An employee of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals holds bottles of albendazole, an anti-hookworm medication.

Why A Pill That's 4 Cents In Tanzania Costs Up To $400 In The U.S.

3:41pm December 11, 2017

by Nadia Whitehead

The medication fights hookworm. It's one of several drugs for "neglected tropical diseases" that are priced differently in the United States than they are in the developing world.

Hookworm was a fact of American life a century ago. In this photo, circa 1912, from Faulkner County, Arkansas, resident gather outside a "dispensary" for free treatment.

The U.S. Thought It Was Rid Of Hookworm. Wrong

8:40pm September 12, 2017

by Nadia Whitehead

The American medical establishment was confident: no hookworm disease in the country for decades. A new study uncovered cases in Alabama.

Some people in the global health sector call him "Bono with a bow tie." Dr. Peter Hotez in his office at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

#NPRWormWeek: The Scientist Who's Waging A War On Worms

1:17pm August 08, 2016

by Malaka Gharib

Scientist Peter Hotez has spent nearly 40 years trying to treat and eliminate the diseases that worms can cause. And he won't let the "ick" factor stop him.

The giant roundworm, Ascaris lumbricoides, shows its three serrated lips.

Can A Parasitic Worm Make It Easier (Or Harder) For A Woman To Conceive?

2:36am November 21, 2015

by Rae Ellen Bichell

Maybe. A nine-year study in Bolivia found an unexpected association between the parasitic worms in a woman's guts and her fertility.

Adult hookworms, from a dog. The larva, which penetrate the skin, are even smaller.

Trying To Get The World Unhooked From Hookworm

4:26pm July 22, 2015

by Nadia Whitehead

The worm infects 740 million people and causes anemia and loss of protein. A vaccine is in the works. And some brave souls are testing it out by ... getting infected with hookworm.