Read more about this disease, some with Classification – Types – Signs and symptoms – Genetics – Pathophysiology – Diagnosis – Screening – Prevention – Treatment and management – Cures and much more, some including pictures and video when available.
Cholera, sometimes known as Asiatic or epidemic cholera, is an infectious gastroenteritis caused by enterotoxin-producing strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.[1][2] Transmission to humans occurs through eating food or drinking water contaminated with cholera vibrios. The major reservoir for cholera was long assumed to be humans themselves, but considerable evidence exists that aquatic environments can serve as reservoirs of the bacteria.
Vibrio cholerae is a Gram-negative bacterium that produces cholera toxin, an enterotoxin, whose action on the mucosal epithelium lining of the small intestine is responsible for the disease’s infamous characteristic, explosive diarrhea.[1] In its most severe forms, cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known, and a healthy person’s blood pressure may drop to hypotensive levels within an hour of the onset of symptoms; infected patients may die within three hours if medical treatment is not provided.[1] In a common scenario, the disease progresses from the first liquid stool to shock in 4 to 12 hours, with death following in 18 hours to several days, unless oral rehydration therapy is provided.[3][4]
The incubation period is the period from infection until symptoms occur. In cholera this is usually 24-72 hours. The severity of symptoms depends on the dose, i.e. the number of bacteria ingested. Some otherwise healthy individuals may not develop any symptoms at all. Of those who do, only a small proportion develop severe disease.
The principal symptom of cholera is diarrhea, which is watery and brown at first, but quickly changes to large volumes of pale fluid stools (‘rice-water stools’). In the most severe cases dramatic fluid loss from the continuous diarrhea can lead to hypovolemic shock and collapse within 1 to 4 hours. Depending upon the treatment provided, unconsciousness and death can occur anytime from 12 to 18 hours afterwards, although some individual cases may persist for several days.
Fever is not a prominent feature of cholera.
Writer Susan Sontag wrote that cholera was more feared than some other deadly diseases because it dehumanized the victim. Diarrhea and dehydration were so severe that the victim could literally shrink into a wizened caricature of his or her former self before death.[5] Other symptoms include nosebleed, rapid pulse, dry skin, tiredness, abdominal cramps, nausea, leg cramps, and vomiting.
In most cases cholera can be successfully treated with oral rehydration therapy. Prompt replacement of water and electrolytes is the principle treatment for cholera, as dehydration and electrolyte depletion occur rapidly. Oral rehydration therapy or ORT is highly effective, safe, and simple to administer. In situations where commercially produced ORT sachets are too expensive or difficult to obtain, alternative home made solutions using various formulas of water, sugar, table salt, baking soda and fruit have proven effective.
In severe cases the administration of intravenous rehydration solutions may be necessary.
[tubepress mode=’tag’, tagValue=’Cholera’]