[A boy with cholera from India].
A 7-year-old Indian boy travelling from India to the United Kingdom was brought to the Emergency Clinic of Airport Medical Services at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He had had watery diarrhoea in the aircraft and had lost consciousness. In view of the strong indications for cholera and the rice water-like diarrhoea, he was admitted to the paediatric ward of the VU Medical Centre where intravenous rehydration was carried out. He recovered within three days. A large number of comma-shaped, motile, Gram-negative rods were found in the faeces. After two days, the faeces culture revealed Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor, serotype Inaba. On the day of the flight, the patient had drunk a litre of water from a bottle that later turned out to have been from the New Delhi water supply. Cholera is rare as an import disease in the Netherlands. Due to the severe dehydration, the infection can run a serious course and even be fatal. The infection is not transmitted from person to person. Therefore, no special measures are needed when a patient with cholera is admitted to hospital.
VU Medisch Centrum, Postbus 7057, 1007 MB Amsterdam. am.vfurth@vumc.nl
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van Furth
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Croughs
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Terpstra
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Vandenbroucke-Grauls
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van Well
D002648:Child; D002771:Cholera / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D014195:Travel; D014734:Vibrio cholerae / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification; D014871:Water Microbiology