DRACUNCULIASIS IN BURKINA-FASO - RESULTS OF A NATIONAL SURVEY

National surveys using active reporting are essential steps in the glo bal dracunculiasis eradication programme. All the known villages of Bu rkina Faso were visited at the end of 1990 by teams of field-workers w ho organized meetings with local informants in order to enquire about ail cases of the emergence of Guinea worms during the past twelve mont hs. The annual incidence for 1990 was then calculated using recent dem ographic data. Data collected were validated by a second survey of a r andom sample of 221 villages. The national coverage rate was 99.3% of villages; 42 227 cases were reported. The annual incidence for 1990 wa s 46.4 cases per 10 000. There was a pronounced heterogeneity in the s patial distribution of endemic foci, with a concentration of cases in the north and centre of the country. In Burkina Faso, dracunculiasis h as a heterogeneous distribution with a pronounced concentration of cas es in the North and Centre that reach mesoendemic incidence rates.