title: Cholera.
abstract: Cholera is an acute, watery diarrhoeal disease caused by Vibrio cholerae of the O1 or O139 serogroups. In the past two centuries, cholera has emerged and spread from the Ganges Delta six times and from Indonesia once to cause global pandemics. Rational approaches to the case management of cholera with oral and intravenous rehydration therapy have reduced the case fatality of cholera from more than 50% to much less than 1%. Despite improvements in water quality, sanitation, and hygiene, as well as in the clinical treatment of cholera, the disease is still estimated to cause about 100 000 deaths every year. Most deaths occur in cholera-endemic settings, and virtually all deaths occur in developing countries. Contemporary understanding of immune protection against cholera, which results from local intestinal immunity, has yielded safe and protective orally administered cholera vaccines that are now globally stockpiled for use in the control of both epidemic and endemic cholera.
authors.affiliation: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Centre for Health and Population Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh; UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Korea University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. Electronic address: jclemens@icddrb.org.
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Clemens
authors.affiliation: WHO, Delhi, India.
authors.forename: G Balakrish
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Nair
authors.affiliation: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Centre for Health and Population Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
authors.forename: Tahmeed
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.affiliation: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Centre for Health and Population Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
authors.forename: Firdausi
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Qadri
authors.affiliation: University of Goteborg, Goteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Holmgren
mesh_terms: D002771:Cholera / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000209:etiology; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005440:Fluid Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007214:Indonesia / Q000453:epidemiology; D014734:Vibrio cholerae / Q000302:isolation & purification*