Detecting A Cholerra Outbreak

Cholera is a disease that can be acquired by drinking water or eating food that is contaminated with the Cholera bacteria. Cholera usually spreads when eating raw or undercooked shellfish. The cholera bacterium can be found in marine water attaching itself to chitin-containing sea creatures.

The cholera bacteria infects the intestines and the spreads to the rest of the body after it is ingested. The infection can be mild or with no symptoms, but 5-10% of people infected will have severe cholera and maybe even life threatening. The symptoms for cholera watery diarrhea, vomiting, rapid heart rate, loss of skin elasticity, dry mucous membranes, low blood pressure, thirst, muscle cramps, and restlessness. People with severe cholera can also have an unbalanced amount of electrolytes or can even fall into a coma.

The only way to detect is by comparing how fast the disease is spreading. It is important to detect and identify cholera because of how fast it could spread. In order to identify if it’s cholera, a culture of stool needs to be available. Doctors use Cary Blair medium for transporting the stool onto the culture, and selective thiosulfate–citrate–bile salts agar for isolating and identifying the bacteria.

In order to survive severe infections, the infected need rapid high-volume dehydration, for example, oral rehydration (ORS) or intravenous (IV) rehydration before the ORS. Treatments for the cholera infection consist of rehydration therapy, which is a prompt restoration of lost fluids and salts through rehydration therapy, antibiotic treatment, which reduces fluid requirements and duration of illness, and Zinc treatment, which reduce the severity of diarrhea. Rehydration therapy is the primary goal of treatment and antibiotic treatment is mainly for severe