Makoy Samuel Yibi Logora is director of the Southern Sudan Guinea Worm Eradication Program. Born in Mulla village in Terekeka County, Southern Sudan, Makoy grew up watching his friends and family suffer from Guinea worm disease.
When he was a small child, Sudan’s first civil war forced his family to move to Juba. But Makoy never forgot the horrors of Guinea worm disease and he has devoted nearly his entire career to wiping out the parasite forever.
Makoy graduated in 1992 as a qualified general medical technician with a diploma in preventative and curative medicine from the Health Training Institute at the University of Gezira. After working at Wad Medani Teaching Hospital in Gezira State for a few years, Makoy returned to Terekeka County as assistant commissioner of health in 1995. At the time, almost every village in Terekeka was endemic to Guinea worm disease.
In 2002 he was promoted to Central Equatoria State’s Ministry of Health headquarters as the deputy director for the Primary Health Care Program and state coordinator for the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme.
After the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ended Sudan’s civil war, Makoy was appointed as director of the Southern Sudan Guinea Worm Eradication Programme based out of the Government of Southern Sudan’s Ministry of Health.
Under Makoy’s leadership, cases of Guinea worm disease in Southern Sudan were reduced by 87 percent from 2006 to 2009. For his relentless and effective efforts, he received the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Award for Guinea Worm Eradication in 2008.
Makoy likes to joke that his goal is to work himself out of his job. “It will mean we’ve succeeded in our aim to eliminate Guinea worm in Southern Sudan,” he says. Once Guinea worm is gone, Makoy thinks he might like to become a farmer.
