Dracunculiasis in Burkina Faso: results of a national survey.

National surveys using active reporting are essential steps in the global dracunculiasis eradication programme. All the known villages of Burkina Faso were visited at the end of 1990 by teams of field-workers who organized meetings with local informants in order to enquire about all cases of the emergence of Guinea worms during the past twelve months. The annual incidence for 1990 was then calculated using recent demographic data. Data collected were validated by a second survey of a random sample of 221 villages. The national coverage rate was 99.3% of villages; 42,227 cases were reported. The annual incidence for 1990 was 46.4 cases per 10,000. There was a pronounced heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of endemic foci, with a concentration of cases in the north and centre of the country. In Burkina Faso, dracunculiasis has a heterogeneous distribution with a pronounced concentration of cases in the North and Centre that reach mesoendemic incidence rates.