Deadly Cholera: Contaminated Water That Results in Rice Water
There have already been seven pandemics of cholera that we know of. Dating to before the first pandemic, an endemic of the disease is known to have been associated in India and traced to crowds in the river Ganges. The disease spread from India to other countries when British war ships entering and leaving India spread it elsewhere in 1816. This spread of cholera lead to the first pandemic of it. In addition to British troop spreading cholera elsewhere, trade routes allowed cholera to be transmitted to China, Japan, the Philippines, Persian Gulf, Africa, and Central Asia. Along with trading resources and goods, slave trade made it easy to transmit cholera efficiently. Furthermore, cholera was further spread by Chinese soft-shell turtles which allow the disease to hang on it and develop.
Another pandemic began in 1829, where it started in Russia and quickly made its way across Europe. Furthermore, the disease spread to Canada and New York when Irish immigrants immigrated there. From there the disease spread to the U.S. west coast as well as Mexico and Latin America. Port cities, such as New York, New Orleans, and Philadelphia, tended to get hit hard due to constant trade and immigration flowing through them. Since urbanization and immigration had become common, diseases like cholera flourished. This is because urbanization caused tight spaces with crowds and lower sanitation due to high populations and poverty. If water or food became infected with cholera it was easy to spread if people continuously kept taking from that same location.
A third pandemic occurred between 1852 and 1863 and is thought to have been the deadliest of the cholera pandemics. This pandemic was associated with Africa, the U.S. the Middle East, Europe, and India. During this outbreak, John Snow, with the help of Henry Whitehead, published groundbreaking studies on Cholera. Snow observed that in the Epidemic Soho area of London, water was being taken from polluted areas. This led Snow to believe contaminated water was causing cholera. Once he had knowledge to believe this to be true, the handle on the water pump on Broad Street was removed and deaths from cholera began to decrease. Although Snow hypothesized water causing cholera, he never truly determined the bacterial root cause of it. Around the same time as Snow’s research, a researcher named Filippo Pacini identified the cholera bacterium. Unfortunately, he did not get recognized for this discovery until after his death when Dr. Robert Koch identified the same bacteria in 1883. Once the bacteria was identified, it could be properly prevented and treated in the area’s where it was found such as Calcutta.
As for cholera outbreaks in the 21stcentury, Africa still has many cases of it. This is mainly due to poor water quality as well as poor sanitation. In these impoverished areas, water is rare to come by so people drink whatever they can find. Since poverty in Africa is so prevalent, many health sanitation systems and hospitals had closed down due to a lack in economics. In 2010, an outbreak began in Haiti following the enormous earthquake they experienced. The earthquake caused fecal matter to contaminate the Artibonite River, one of Haiti’s prime sources for drinking water. As of January 2017, Haiti has been receiving assistance from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in order to provide vaccines. Unfortunately, in October 2016 Hurricane Matthew had hit Haiti, which caused even more people in Haiti in need of homes and health assistance, as well as a further spread of cholera that came with a decrease in available drinking water. As of now, Haiti needs approximately $66 million for water sanitation and hygiene interventions to eliminate the transmission of cholera. However, in the meantime, oral vaccines have been brought in affordable, large amounts to Haiti to fight cholera and public health research remains to occur.
References (Help Received)
Sherman, I.W. (2017). The Power of Plagues (2nded.). Washington, D.C.: ASM Press.
“Eliminating Cholera Transmission in Haiti” article (New England Journal of Medicine)
Cholera PowerPoint