BIO 245X

7/18/18

Noah Delaney-Manuel

Artifact 7: Cholera

When it comes to infections, many of them can be cured easily and do not turn into serious struggles. With Cholera however, this couldn’t be further from the truth. When talking about a fast acting and lethal infection which can act very quickly, Cholera is a very good prospect of those factors. Some of the symptoms which Cholera has includes dehydration, and also leads to thinning out of the body. I know that becoming thin may not sound like a horrible symptom to get from a disease, but it does not get you skinny in the right way. Cholera is an infection which comes from the small intestines. When the bacteria enter your body, it sucks all the water to the small intestine and away from the rest of your body. This is why some of the people who get Cholera can die within 24 hours. Mistaking cholera for a simple sickness is often a grim mistake which holds the worst consequence possible; death.

With the spread of Cholera, it is a water/foodborne bacterium that flourishes mostly in poor regions of the world. Most often the bacteria enter the body through contaminated water or through food washed with contaminated water. This attributes to its pandemics throughout history. Many times, when cholera was spread in the past, it was along trade routes. While traveling, people do not have the time do decontaminate water, they must drink what they have access to. Although going thirsty would not be a fun experience, it would be a whole lot better than getting the Cholera infection. Although Cholera is very infectious and deadly, it is one infection that can be observed and assumed that it does not affect the rich as much as the poor. Since the infection is spread through water or food, it makes sense that the people who have less access to more sanitary food and water would be the group of people that gets affected the most by the disease. Because most of the population back when the Cholera outbreaks were occurring were poor, it caused a great panic between the people. Not knowing how to prevent from getting an infection that could kill you in a day put many of the people in fear. Doctor Jon Snow studied the transmission of the Cholera outbreak in his home town in the SoHo district. He found that Cholera was spread through contaminated water, helping people realize at least one of the preventative measures were.

While Cholera is such an old infection that has been around for hundreds of years, we have not been able to eradicate the infection. There are still cases around the world of Cholera; the most prominent number of cases occurring in India. India harbors a perfect habitat for Cholera to infect and kill millions. In India, there is an essential part of any Indian native’s life that they always interact with; the Ganges river. Unfortunately, this river is also an essential vector in the spread of Cholera. This river is where human waste, trash, and other unsanitary items are dumped. It is also where they get their drinking water, cooking water, bathing water, and even recreational water from as well. This is a huge factor as to why the Cholera outbreak has maintained itself in India for so long. Another region where Cholera has recently had an outbreak was in Haiti. Back when Haiti had the earthquake in 2010, their main water supply, the Artibonite river was contaminated with human feces. This is the exact same way that Cholera is so prominent in India today. The contamination of water is the perfect environment for the infection to spread, and since the Haitian people had just been through a devastating earthquake, they could not be picky about where they got their water from.

Help Received: PowerPoint slides

Noah Delaney-Manuel