A New View of Why Cholera Won't Go Away

jerry submitted, created time 3 months 4 days (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Cholera first infected humans in the early 19th century in Bengal, a region that straddles what is now the border between Bangladesh and India, and the bacterial disease still sweeps through the area regularly. After sifting through historical records of cholera deaths in Bengal, a team of scientists in the United States and Europe proposes a new explanation for these repeated outbreaks, suggesting that immunity to cholera wanes more rapidly than thought and that many more people than believed become infected without exhibiting symptoms.

Cholera is usually caused by bacteria in water contaminated by feces from infected people. The disease can kill within hours of the first symptoms. For reasons no one quite understands, cholera epidemics seem to follow the seasons, surging and then receding in predictable patterns. Researchers have offered various explanations for the recurring outbreaks, including temperature shifts and the changing ecology of local water bodies, but they haven't had enough evidence to nail down the cause.

Keywords: epidemics epidemiology cholera