Nearly 80pc of cholera infections contracted within 5 days: Study
UNB
For the first time, the transmission of cholera has been tracked at the household level across Dhaka, a city with a hyper-endemic level of the disease, says a new study, reports UNB. Researchers from icddr,b and the Wellcome Sanger Institute along with other collaborators found that nearly 80 percent of the cholera transmission in Dhaka occurred between people who shared a household.
The results of the large-scale study published yesterday could be used by public health officials to improve cholera control strategies.
Preventing the chain of transmission within households in high-burden areas could have a huge impact on reducing the number of cholera cases worldwide.
Despite being thought of as an ancient disease, cholera cases are on the rise, with around 1.4 billion people at risk in endemic countries, and an estimated 3 million to 5 million cases each year. The disease causes up to 120,000 deaths per year globally.
Dhaka is a megacity in Bangladesh that experiences two seasonal outbreaks of cholera each year; it is considered hyper-endemic for the disease.
To understand how cholera outbreaks sweep through the population and to highlight the best control strategies, the researchers tracked cholera strains at a local level - from people within households, who shared a cooking pot and ate together.
Between 2002 and 2005, samples were taken from cholera patients admitted to Dhaka Hospital of icddr,b (formerly known as the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Research, Bangladesh) in Bangladesh.
