In 1986, this parasitic disease afflicted around 3.5 million people a year in 21 countries across Africa and Asia. In 2025, the Carter Center recorded just 10 human cases, a provisional figure. There is no vaccine and no drug: victory has come from filtering drinking water, health education and village-by-village surveillance. It could become the second human disease ever eradicated, after smallpox.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.