A FORMER Hampshire MP has hosted a former US president at a special event in Parliament.

Liberal Democrat peer and former Eastleigh MP Lord Chidgey welcomed Jimmy Carter to Westminster to recognise achievements in the imminent eradication of Guinea worm disease.

The international exhibition also involved a lecture by the Democrat former president.

After a 30-year campaign led by the Carter Center, an organisation he established when he left office in 1980, Guinea worm disease which had afflicted millions, is now down to fewer than 30 isolated cases.

Lord Chidgey, who represented Eastleigh from 1994 to 2005 and now sits in the House of Lords, and lives in Alresford, first met the former president when he chaired meetings with the Carter Center in Parliament in his role as chairman of the Africa All Party Parliamentary Group.

He said: “Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center have achieved astounding results, not just in disease eradication, but also in pioneering election observation, now in over 100 elections, improving democracy in some 40 developing countries.”

Guinea worm is a parasitic disease that breeds in stagnant water.

The parasites enter the body through contaminated drinking water, developing into worms that force their way out through the skin.

There is no cure and the victim suffers extreme pain while the 30-day cycle runs its course.

Guinea worm disease will be only the second human disease in history to be eradicated.